Courts issue Vonage, Sprint and Verizon verdicts

Vonage won a reprieve from one court yesterday after losing in a jury trail the day before. On Tuesday, the Holmdel, N.J. VoIP provider was ordered by a jury to pay Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in damages for patent infringement. On Wednesday, federal judges in Washington, D.C., vacated a decision ordering Vonage to pay $58 million in damages to Verizon for similar violations.

Three separate patents were disputed in the Verizon case. A U.S. District Court in Virginia ruled against Vonage and award Verizon $58 million. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined the Virginia court was right to find infringement on two patents, but it said the third had been improperly explained to the jury. The court thus vacated the damage award and the ruling on the third patent, and instructed the lower court to revisit the first two.

"We vacate in its entirety the award of $58,000,000 in damages and the 5.5 percent royalty and remand to the district court for further proceedings. We affirm the injunction as to the '574 and '711 patents. We vacate the injunction insofar as it pertains to the '880 patent," the appeals court ruled.

For more:
- The Verizon appeal decision is here
- The Kansas City Star has the Sprint Nextel verdict here

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