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Originally posted by red-beard
Yep, due to the imminent demise of Vonage....
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I wouldn't conclude that Vonage is going to go away.
I was reading over some of Verizon's patent claims (as part of some stock research on Vonage) -- I'm nearly 100% sure that the jury that awarded Verizon their recent win in court, and set the stage for the current position Vonage is in, really didn't "have a clue" about what the patents involved. I think the jurors tried to be "fair" in their decision, but were making a decision based upon court room activity completely unrelated to the patent details. (This is a common problem with patent suits; jurors just don't have the technical/scientific background where they can make informed decisions about critical aspects in the patent dispute.)
Vonage's attorneys had tried to argue that Verizon's patents are similar to putting some lights on a tree, then trying to get a patent controlling all Christmas trees! Reading some of the details in portions of Verizon's patents, I would have to agree!
That said, once a jury has spoken, judges are very reluctant to overturn the jury's conclusions on appeal, so I'm not convinced that Vonage's appeal will be successful.
As I see it, the more likely scenario will involve Vonage creating "work-arounds" to Verizon's patents, which will probably lead to another suit by Verizon, but Vonage will keep running their business. Odds are, Vonage customers won't lose their service.
Of course, if Vonage's stock really plummets, maybe Verizon will just buy Vonage -- it could be a cheap way for them to acquire 2 million customers and end all lawsuit costs trying to protect patents which (in my opinion) are "too broad" for them to defend successfully in the future.