May 2nd, 2007
Vonage: we want a do-over in Verizon patent infringement trial
Vonage has asked the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit to shelve its Verizon patent infringement judgement and send the case back to a lower court for retrial.
The impetus: a unanimous opinion released by the Supreme Court on Monday, seen by some as a rework of Patent infringement law.
In a court motion obtained by CNET News.com, attorneys for Vonage argued that the jury in the original trial was instructed to weigh the validity of Verizon patents based on a test for patent obviousness that the Supreme Court ruled on Monday is too rigid, making it harder to challenge suspect patents. (That case, KSR International v. Teleflex, involved a dispute about patents on gas pedal designs and the extent to which combinations of elements can be patented.)
In a statement, Vonage chief legal officer Sharon O'Leary said: "According to the Supreme Court's ruling, if you patent an orange picker, and then someone else comes along and puts a glove on it to protect the oranges against bruising, you can't patent this new invention as 'novel' as it is just an obvious improvement of the original invention. The Supreme Court's decision thus focuses on keeping only what's truly novel and original protected by patents."
All this started in March , when a jury decided that three Verizon patents were valid and had been infringed by Vonage, which carried a damages award of $58 million, plus royalties on future sales.
Now, as apparent by O'Leary's statement, Vonage claims that the instructions given to the juryh back in March are superseded by the Supreme Court ruling in KSR International v. Teleflex.
Vonage may see things this way, but not Verizon.
"There is no merit to Vonage's motion," said Vonage deputy general counsel John Thome late yesterday. "It's a delaying tactic to avoid final resolution of the appeal."
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
