At 12:05 PM -0700 10/5/05, John Todd wrote:
At 2:43 PM -0700 10/4/05, trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com wrote:
Sprint Nextel is sueing vonage, voiceglo and theglobe.com for infringing
on VoIP patents. Sprint Nextel claims to have about 100 patents on VoIP
technologies. Does anyone know which ones this article is talking
about, and if so does asterisk have any of those features?
The reason I am asking is that the article is vague, Vonage uses a
fairly standard codec set, I dont know about the others. So if its not
codecs I wonder if its something so generic that the patent would be
tossed out upon challenge.
Anyone thinking about doing a VoIP business may want to get more info
before proceeding since they may not have the millinos vonage has to
fight this.
http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2005/10/03/daily23.html
--
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com Bret McDanel
UK +44 870 340 4605 Germany +49 801 777 555 3402
US +1 360 207 0479 or +1 516 687 5200
FreeWorldDialup: 635378
This perhaps is quite relevant to the Asterisk community.
While I don't know the specifics about Vonage, I do know that they
have been rumored to have (in the past, or present) used Asterisk in
their core for some services. (Voicemail? Conference? Messages?)
This, however, is not confirmed.
http://www.ilocus.com/ui_dataFiles/news18aug05.htm
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=%22vonage+uses+asterisk%22&btnG=Search
According to public information, Voiceglo uses IAX and Asterisk:
http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2004-February/036311.html
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1059204,00.html
FYI: Voiceglo and theglobe.com are the same company for all intents
and purposes.
Therefore, I am very interested to see if this is merely
co-incidental or if there is a reason that Sprint picked out two
providers that use Asterisk in their core. Despite hysteria or
misinformation on this (and other) lists, there is no direct
information that I've seen that this is Sprint making a blanket
patent lawsuit against anyone using VoIP. Perhaps this is just some
specific feature that they have a legitimate patent on which has
been infringed. I doubt this is a codec patent issue, nor an
equipment patent issue (as previously discussed on -biz list.)
Is there anyone with better detail on the lawsuit specifics able to comment?
JT
To answer my own question: no, it doesn't seem like there is anything
Asterisk-specific in the suit. It seems that Sprint is claiming that
they own the rights to pretty much any VoIP technology. Carry on,
everyone; this will be thrown out with the rest of the garbage after
Vonage and others spend huge amounts of time and effort staving off
the frivolity lawyers. <sigh>
JT
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