According to Reuters, a U.S. federal court has reached a decision on Sprint Nextel Corp's patent infringement lawsuit against Vonage.A Vonage spokeswoman could not provide further details on the decision and a Sprint representative was not immediately available. Trading in Vonage shares was halted on the Nasdaq early on Tuesday afternoon after sliding 7.7 percent to $1.81.
So let's see. Stock shares halted, Vonage couldn't provide details, and Sprint wasn't immediately available. Can't be good news, but we shall see. Depending on the decision, it could mean that Vonage is a) forced to stop providing services or b) pay patent extortion money to Sprint.
Oh wait, just found out that the federal jury has ruled that Vonage has to pay $69.5 million in damages to Sprint Nextel for using its patents. This is in addition to the $58 million in damages that Vonage had to pay Verizon for violating their patents. That's over $127 million. Ouch. Maybe Vonage can find a company that owns some VoIP patents and acquire them. Then they can get into the patent extortion racket, I mean patent royalty game.
Of course, some have speculated that VoIP, Inc.'s patents might save Vonage.
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