Vonage: We Ain’t Got No Work-arounds

In this week’s podcast, James Gattuso asked about the possibility of a Vonage work-around for Verizon’s patents. The Indianapolis Star reports that talk of a workaround was just that:

Vonage has finally confirmed what many had feared: The embattled Internet phone company has no “workaround” in hand to sidestep Verizon’s patented Internet phone technology.

Moreover, Vonage isn’t sure that such a plan is even “feasible,” given the expansiveness of Verizon’s patents, which set out methods for passing calls between the Web and conventional phone networks. Vonage’s chilly assessment, contained in a filing submitted to a federal court Friday, marks the first time it has admitted that it doesn’t have a plan for getting around Verizon’s technology. Vonage couldn’t be reached for comment.

Vonage elaborates in a filing with the Federal Circuit:

In its Friday filing, Vonage, which is now trying to get a permanent stay, painted a far different picture.

“Vonage currently has no workarounds that moot the need for a stay,” the company said.

“While Vonage has studied methods for designing around the patents, removal of the allegedly infringing technology, if even feasible, could take many months to fully study and implement.”

This is more or less what Research in Motion said in early 2006, and they ended up having to fork over $600 million to NTP. The problem is that the “technology” at issue in these cases usually isn’t “technology” at all in the usual sense of the term. It’s a legal monopoly over a broad category of functionality. In the BlackBerry case, it was (more or less) “checking your email with a wireless device.” In this case it’s converting IP addresses to phone numbers. When you think about it in those terms, it’s not even obvious what it would mean to come up with a workaround. Any device that doesn’t infringe the patents in question wouldn’t work.

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