Fresh off its legal wins over Vonage Holdings Corp. and Voiceglo Communications (which no longer exists), Sprint Nextel Corp. now is suing four competitive providers for the same Voice over Packet (VoP) patent infringement.
The struggling wireless and wireline carrier said Thursday that NuVox Communications, Broadvox Holdings LLC, PAETEC and Big River Telephone Co. all are infringing at least six of its VoP patents.
PAETEC was the only company to immediately respond.
“We have not received a copy of the complaint. When we do we'll review it,” said Lia Lando, public relations manager.
Sprint wants a court to award monetary damages and bar NuVox, Broadvox, PAETEC and Big River from “ongoing infringement.”
"Sprint has invested a great deal in the technology covered by its VOP portfolio," said Harley Ball, vice president of intellectual property for Sprint. "We cannot stand by and allow others to use Sprint's innovations and discoveries to compete with Sprint and its strategic partners.”
The suit marks the second VoP infringement allegation of 2008. Verizon Communications Inc. earlier this month sued cableco Cox Communications Inc., claiming illegal use of its VoIP technology. Such cases are likely to increase as packet-based technologies mature and rivals eye each others’ growing sales numbers.
Sprint last September won $69.5 million in damages from Vonage, which now licenses Sprint’s VoP technology and paid Sprint another $80 million. The Voiceglo case goes back to 2006. Sprint and Voiceglo didn’t disclose how much Voiceglo agreed to pay for licensing rights. Voiceglo closed its doors on March 13, 2007.
Big River Telephone Co. www.bigrivertelephone.com
Broadvox Holdings LLC www.broadvox.net
NuVox Communications www.nuvox.com
PAETEC www.paetec.com
Sprint Nextel Corp. www.sprint.com
Vonage Holdings Corp. www.vonage.com
