By Teresa von Fuchs
Monday, October 8, 2007
Sprint Nextel and Vonage announced they have settled their patent dispute, and Vonage has signed a licensing arrangement for Sprint's Voice-over-Packet patent portfolio. The agreement is valued at $80 million, including $35 million for past use of license, $40 million for a fully paid future license and $5 million in prepayment for services.
Late last month, a jury in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan.,found that Vonage infringed six Sprint patents; Vonage was ordered to pay $69.5 million in damages. At the time of the decision, Vonage said it had already deployed workarounds for the technology in question.
The two announced that today's agreement fully resolves its patent dispute. "We are pleased to resolve our dispute with Sprint and enter into a productive future relationship," Sharon O'Leary, general counsel for Vonage, said in a statement. "We believe this deal is good news for Vonage, our customers and our shareholders. It allows us to put this litigation behind us and continue to focus on our core business by removing the uncertainty of legal reviews and long-term court action."
Sprint's VOP portfolio includes more than 100 patents covering different methods, components and systems that connect calls between a regular telephone network and a packet-switched network.