I see this case as a war between phone companies and Internet Companies. The more traditional phone companies want to deny any of these Interenet based phone companies from competing.

The Patents were issued in such a broad manner to prohibit all phone communication using and IP Address. However, I dont see them sueing AT&T or Siemens who both make and distribute VOIP Systems.

I dont see how you can get a patent so non specific and have it hold up in court. I did not think that Vonage is not the first company that has used an IP Address to send a communication from a phone. I would argue in this case that because so many big players are using VOIP devices that it has become an industry standard.

The Verizon patents would not apply to cable telephony, as the cable companies do not use the Internet. They use IP encapsulation, but PacketCable handles the calls differently.

IP encapsulation of voice is not at issue. The patents instead cover DNS and ENUM, the translation of names (including phone numbers) to IP addresses. One patent is about having multiple choices, which is what's done with MX records in email.

Now obviously DNS is not novel -- but the judge didn't seem to care about prior art, and neither does the patent office. ENUM's a standard, again probably the patent filing. So the patents are trash. But then so are a lot of patents in the United States. Someone has to take the time and spend the money to get these overturned, of course, and the FUD is what Verizon wants, to use bad patents as a weapon against competition.

"yes: US patent issues are adjudicated by jury." Is there a point to this comment?

""yes: US patent issues are adjudicated by jury." Is there a point to this comment?"

Well yes as the idea that very technical issues are decided by a group of dimwitted American citizens as opposed to experts of some description is pretty lol worthy.

But anyway it's just an other eample of how uncapitalist the States really are, and how retarded their overly broken patent system is, and the EC want to make ours more like theirs lol, soon no new technology companies will be able to come into play (lol amazon one click).

Surely this is just database look up techniques. What is so special about recording a link between an IP address and any other piece of information?

Verizon did not discover databases or their techniques so where is anything that is patentable?

The solution is obvious, Vonage (and any other VoIP provider) should locate their servers outside of the US. Iceland is the current location in vogue, I understand.