Jury Awards Sprint Nextel $69.5 Million Plus Royalties in Infringement Lawsuit against Vonage.OVERLAND PARK Overland Park, city (1990 pop. 111,790), Johnson co., NE Kans., a residential suburb of Kansas City; inc. 1960. There is printing and publishing, and the manufacture of apparel, aircraft parts, cement, prepared foods, salt, chemicals, marine accessories, and signs. , Kan. -- A jury verdict announced yesterday in the patent infringement patent infringement n. the manufacture and/or use of an invention or improvement for which someone else owns a patent issued by the government, without obtaining permission of the owner of the patent by contract, license or waiver. dispute between Sprint Nextel Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. With 55 million subscribers, Sprint Nextel operates the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States (based on total wireless customers), behind and Vonage in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City Kansas City, two adjacent cities of the same name, one (1990 pop. 149,767), seat of Wyandotte co., NE Kansas (inc. 1859), the other (1990 pop. 435,146), Clay, Jackson, and Platte counties, NW Mo. (inc. 1850). , found that Vonage infringes all six of Sprint Nextel's voice-over-packet patents at issue in the case. The jury awarded Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in past damages and a five percent royalty on future revenue. "We are extremely pleased with the verdict as it underscores the strength of our voice-over-packet portfolio and reinforces the importance of the innovations developed by our employees," said Harley Ball, Sprint's vice president of intellectual property. "The inventions developed by the late Joseph Christie and other Sprint employees are critical to voice over packet telephony Synonymous with IP telephony and voice over IP (VoIP), in which a digital voice stream is broken up into small chunks (packets) and transmitted over a packet-switched network. See IP telephony and packet switching. and we view the verdict as validation of the depth of our patent portfolio." Sprint's voice-over-packet portfolio comprises more than 100 patents covering different methods, components and systems that efficiently connect telephone calls between a regular telephone network and a packet-switched network such as the Internet. About Sprint Nextel Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two robust wireless networks serving 54 million customers at the end of the second quarter 2007; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international walkie-talkie capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone (communications, networking) Internet backbone - High-speed networks that carry Internet traffic. These communications networks are provided by companies such as AT&T, GTE, IBM, MCI, Netcom, Sprint, UUNET and consist of high-speed links in the T1, T3, OC1 and OC3 ranges. . For more information, visit www.sprint.com. |
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