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
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