Vonage Settles with Nortel

Vonage has managed to settle its patent dispute with Nortel in a patent cross-licensing deal that doesn't cost either company any money.

VoIP operator Vonage has announced that it has reached a settlement in the patent infringement suit brought against it by Nortel earlier this month.

This time, no financial terms of the settlement were disclosed because, apparently, there were no financial terms: instead the companies will grant each other limited cross-licenses to each other’s patents: Vonage will get access to three Nortel patents, and Nortel will get access to three Vonage patents.

The settlement is a welcome change from some of the high-profile patent disputes which have marked 2007 for the VoIP provider: Vonage has been ordered to pay Verizon $120 million in damages and an $80 million settlement with Sprint. The company has also just resolved a patent dispute with AT&T for an unspecified figure believed to be near $40 million.