Verizon has recently requested a federal appeals court to dismiss Vonage’s request for a retrial in an ongoing battle over Internet-phone-related patents. The struggling Internet phone provider, Vonage, had contended in a court filing earlier this week that a landmark Supreme Court judgment this week has raised critical questions about whether a jury appropriately determined that the Verizon patents in question were legitimate. On those grounds, Vonage has asked the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to toss out a $58 million patent infringement ruling against it and order a fresh trial.
However, Verizon countered in a new court filing that dependence on the high court decision in that case was ‘insufficient to justify the relief Vonage seeks.’ The recent unanimous verdict, in a case involving gas pedal manufacturers KSR International and Teleflex, has relaxed the benchmarks by which inventions, especially combinations of existing parts, may be declared too obvious to warrant patent protection.
Verizon argued that Vonage’s ‘hastily filed separate motion’ has raised issues, which should be left to the regular appeals process and did not necessitate a completely fresh trial. The company insisted that Vonage’s arguments are ’so lacking in merit that they should be summarily rejected.’ Interestingly, Vonage did not argue in its motion that the patents it was found to have infringed were understandable and therefore invalid, argued Verizon. In its place, Vonage merely contended that the jury instructions given in the case relied too heavily on the test for patent obviousness that the Supreme Court declared too rigid.
Earlier this week the Supreme Court issued a fresh regulations on what ‘obviousness’ means. In its core it holds that a patent cannot be granted for an invention that is an ‘obvious’ extension to existing technology. The Court had said that the benchmark used to test obvious, the ‘teaching, suggestion or motivation’ test, was not the right one and made it easier for patents to be challenged on the grounds of obviousness.
In the meanwhile, Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron has said, ‘The Supreme Court’s decision should have positive implications for Vonage and our pending patent litigation with Verizon. We are also hopeful that this case will protect legitimate innovators and the value of their inventions, unlock the innovation process, and provide that companies are better able to conduct business without the encumbrance of meritless patent claims.’
In reaction, Verizon Communications said that the Internet telephony firm Vonage was dragging its feet by filing a motion asking a federal appeals court to send Verizon’s patent case against the VoIP delivery service back to a lower court. It further said that the motion has no merit and it’s a delaying tactic to avoid final resolution of the appeal.
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