IP Democracy: Vonage Death Vigil: Vonage Wins Permanent Stay

At last some good news for Vonage: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C. today gave Vonage a permanent stay of an earlier court injunction that would have barred it from signing up new customers. A District Court judge in Alexandria had barred Vonage from signing up new subscribers as part of a ruling in Vonage’s big patent infringement fight with Verizon.

This latest twist in the saga of Vonage’s struggle to survive allows the company to continue signing up new customers until its appeal of the earlier decision has been heard and decided. It’s quite possible that when all is said and done, Vonage may end up in the same boat — but at least the troubled VoIP provider has been thrown a lifesaver that will keep it afloat (maybe) for at least, oh, another two years or so as the appellate process slowly grinds away.

Vonage, however, is confident it will win on appeal. Vonage EVP and chief legal officer Sharon O’Leary said in a statement:

We believe the original verdict was based on an erroneous claim construction — meaning the patents in this case were defined in an overly broad and legally unprecedented way…We are confident this error will be rectified by the appeals court, which hears intellectual property cases exclusively. As a result, we remain highly confident Vonage will prevail on appeal.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on April 24, 2007 2:13 PM to IP Democracy