By Sharla Sikes

Well, here we go again … 2008’s lawsuit battles have begun.

Verizon has brought suit against Cox Communications and Charter Communications in new patent infringement cases.

Verizon has claimed that Cox and Charter have violated eight separate patents, including the three it sued Vonage for last year. But with most cable operators using the same technology for IP call routing, the lawsuits could go on, and on, and on …

Verizon filed the complaint against Charter Feb. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Verizon hopes that district will be “favorable” to its suit. Charter provides service to more than 180,000 customers in Texas. 

Verizon is seeking unspecified damages “no less than a reasonable royalty,” and to prevent Charter from continuing to use the patents.

“We are currently analyzing Verizon’s claims and cannot comment on our defenses at this time, but Charter does intend to vigorously defend itself,” said Charter media relations manager Anita Lamont.

The eight Verizon patents in the recent suits include the two Vonage was found to have infringed, which cover translating information for routing phone calls over packet-based networks. The six other Verizon patents in the lawsuits cover methods and systems for:

quality of service for a communications session, quality of service in a hybrid network, enhanced signaling over hybrid networks, network session management, inter-carrier signaling for connectivity between packet-based and circuit-switched networks and

providing services in a communications network, including a universal directory function.

Verizon’s suit has case docket number 5:08-cv-00025, with Judge David Folsom of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Texarkana assigned to the case. Verizon’s lead attorney is Damon Young of Young, Pickett & Lee in Texarkana.

Verizon has been losing customers for its wireline voice service—8 percent in 2007—and many of those chose VoIP services.

Much of the technology at issue, PacketCable, is used by most other multiple service operators, and if Verizon continues to win these patent infringement suits, they may be working to build a case allowing them to win them all.

“I would not be surprised if that’s their strategy,” said Fred Grasso, an attorney with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP’s intellectual property practice and a VOIP patent expert. “An overarching theme is that it seems Verizon is picking patents that are essential to providing VOIP service.”

Yet the language of the contested patents is “curiously vague,” according to Raymond McConville at  Light Reading.

“They’re not drafted to cover specific architecture,” says Grasso. “There is a risk then that the larger providers are prone to this.”

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