Patent Law

Heavy Drinking

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Having wet its whistle on everyone's favorite VOIP patent whipping post, Vonage, Sprint Nextel is ringing the bell for more rounds against an itty-bitty bevy of mobile phone service providers: Big River Telephone, Broadvox, NuVox, and Paetec Communications were plastered in four separate lawsuits.

Sprint is pouring 6,343,084; 6,633,561; 6,463,052; 6,452,932; 6,473,429; and 6,298,064.

Along with Vonage, which shelled out $80 million in settlement, Sprint previously nailed theglobe.com and Tglo.com with a seven-patent spread.

Sprint claims its VOIP portfolio comprises at least 115 U.S. patents. After downing a shot of patent-on-the-rocks, Harley Ball, Sprint IP VP, puffed up and spewed: "We cannot stand by and allow others to use Sprint's innovations and discoveries to compete with Sprint and its strategic partners." To avoid standing by, Ball was sitting down at the time. Fortunately, a bidness-ease interpreter was available to translate to macho-ease: "We are going to soak these pantywaist punks for going up against us and our imaginary friends."

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on January 25, 2008 (boomark / email).