By Sharla Sikes

Vonage and Verizon continue to battle in a patent dispute brought by Verizon. The communications giant claims Vonage infringed upon three of Verizon’s patents, and in March a jury agreed and awarded Verizon $58 million plus royalties. Further, U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton barred Vonage from signing up new customers. The appeals court granted a stay while it considered the case.

Monday, a judge suggested a possible compromise.

Judge Timothy B. Dyk remarked that a solution allowing Vonage to continue to sign up new customers while it worked to “modify its technologies” during oral arguments.

“Isn’t there kind of a middle ground in these cases when the injunction would put someone out of business? Shouldn’t that be a consideration?” he asked. “Shouldn’t the district court consider allowing time for a work-around as part of the injunction?”

That’s not good enough for the two companies, however; Verizon says Vonage has never sought any type of compromise, and lawyers for Vonage said that while it would accept a modified injunction, the VoIP provider seeks to have the verdict thrown out and a new trial granted.
The three-judge panel will review the case and is expected to reach a decision by the end of July.

At issue is technology that Vonage’s lawyer said was too technical for the judge and jury in the March trial to properly understand and reach a decision as to whether Vonage had infringed on Verizon’s patents.

Those patents were filed in 1997 and cover the translation of domain names and IP addresses to telephone numbers when Internet calls move into the public switched telephone network—something that must happen for VoIP calls to connect.

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