One of the subsidiaries of Sprint Nextel Corp. yesterday filed suit against Vonage Holdings Corp., Voiceglo Holdings Inc. and its subsidiary theglobe.com Inc. for patent infringement.
Sprint Nextel says the companies have violated seven of its patents that cover VoIP technology the company developed. Sprint Nextel wants an injunction against the companies, as well as monetary damages.
Voiceglo took issue with the lawsuit.
“Voiceglo's technology is unique, proprietary and patent pending,” said Ed Cespedes, president of theglobe.com and Voiceglo Holdings, in a statement. “Though we are still reviewing the complaint, we believe that it has no merit and we believe that in due course the courts will agree with us and ultimately settle the matter in our favor."
Cespedes added that free or low-cost services offered by companies such as his “are a natural threat to incumbent telecommunications companies.”
Calls to Vonage for comment were not immediately returned.
Telecom analyst Jeff Kagan speculated that Sprint Nextel does not want to put companies such as Vonage and Voiceglo out of business, “instead, I think they want fair compensation for their technology which is being used by these firms,” he said today. “All of a sudden, over the last year or two, there are many users of VoIP services, both competitors and users, so as it becomes a mainstream service it is important to clarify the rules.”
