The VoIP patent suits brought by the US RBOCS moved to target cable operators for the first time this week, and the suit from Verizon against Cox Cable is likely to be the first of many, after the RBOCs limbered up on Vonage, taking $239 million from its coffers in successful settlements with Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel.
All of the legal actions against Vonage centered on some capability of how VoIP voice networks connect to, or work with, existing telephony, but whereas now Verizon only chased two patents with Vonage, it has filed 8 separate patent infringements against Cox.
No-one has made it clear why Cox and none of the other cable operators break these patents because it is our understanding that they use the same, or very similar, technology, but Verizon could be picking on the most likely case for it to win, and then systematically call on the other cable operators for royalties.
The legal action was filed earlier in January in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Naturally Verizon wants an injunction against Cox and we are sure that the ‘dream’ outcome for the RBOCs is for continuous royalties to force up the prices of VoIP services so that they can halt the price erosion going on in fixed voice. We would expect Comcast and others to come to the aid of Cox and ensure that it fights tooth and claw to keep this verdict from impinging on global VoIP services.
Verizon includes in the 8 patents the same two that Vonage was found to have infringed, 6,104,711 and 6,282,574 relating to translating address information on a packet networks to switched networks, plus 6 more which relate to Quality of Service, session management, and once again communications between a packet-based and circuit-switched network.
It should be clear that many of the VoIP techniques to attach to switched network are obvious, and should not be available to a patent process, but that has not been the outcome of any case so far, and emboldened by the Vonage suit Verizon lawyers clearly think they can turn back the clock and banish VoIP.
It was only about two years ago that the cable operators in the US began to make inroads into the RBOC telephony markets, using genuine VoIP, instead of switched telephony, but since then the erosion of fixed line telephony services has been rampant in the US.