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March 9, 2007
Anti-trust v. IPR
Watch the Verizon v. Vonage case very carefully. Yesterday, a jury ordered Vonage to pay $58 million to Verizon for infringing on a number of Verizon's patents. The jury also awarded a 5.5% future royalty payment. What happens next at a March 23 hearing on a permanent injunction may determine the future of patent law. Verizon and Vonage are competitors - both old tech v. new tech and our VoIP v. their VoIP. The jury found the infringement was not willful. Will the judge order a shut down of a competitor based on non-willful infringement?
This is exactly set of issues that was raised in the 2003 FTC report - To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy. As that report pointed out, "A failure to strike the appropriate balance between competition and patent law and policy can harm innovation."
The larger question will be who decides what that "appropriate balance" is: the Courts v. the Congress. It is possible that the case could make it all the way to the Supreme Court - as this case directly relates to the E-Bay v. MercExchange issue of automatic injunctions. In the meantime, Congress is still trying to take up patent reform. It looks more and more like the Courts are going to win that debate, mainly because of default by the Congress due to lack of action.
Lots of "versus" in this case.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at March 9, 2007 7:46 AM
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