In another court defeat for VoIP provider Vonage, a federal jury has found Vonage in violation of six patents held by Sprint Nextel, and ordered the company to pay $69.5 million in damages, along with a five percent royalty rate on Vonage’s future revenue.
Sprint sued Vonage for patent violations in 2005, originally claiming 61 violations of seven telecommunications patents. The decision comes in the wake of a damaging patent battle between Vonage and Verizon last March, in which Vonage was ordered to pay $58 million and cease infringing on Verizon’s technology. The proceedings in that case have repeatedly threatened to shut down Vonage’s operations as the company struggled to have the injunction postponed during its appeal process, and attempted to implement workarounds to Verizon’s patents. Vonage was able to retain the ability to sign up new customers and continue operations while its case with Verizon moves forward.
