Vonage continues to grapple with the likely lethal verdict that found, among other things, the VoIP pioneer has infringed upon key patents held by Verizon. The court in that case ruled that Vonage must stop signing up new customers as a consequence. Although Vonage won a permanent stay of that decision pending its appeal, the company tried to vacate the original verdict in light of the landmark decision handed down by the Supreme Court on April 30 in KSR v. Teleflex (PDF of the decision here), asking for a retrial given that the Court in Teleflex opened a big door to invalidating patents.
But Vonage struck out again. On Wednesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the very same court taken to task by the Supreme Court in the Teleflex decision) turned down Vonage’s request that the original verdict be vacated. Instead, the appeals court ruled, Vonage could use the Teleflex decision as it argues its appeal.
It was a nice try by Vonage to get around the big bad decision. All interpretations of the Supreme Court’s decision in KSR v. Teleflex (like all patent-related legal rulings, the issues in this case are complex and dense and too vast to summarize here) conclude that the Court has paved the way for a profusion of patent invalidations. Unfortunately, it seems, the KSR v. Teleflex decision arrived too late to do Vonage much good.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:50 AM|Comments(0)
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