You might be forgiven for putting money into the Vonage deadpool. Their beating from Verizon's patent-stick has been a textbook example of how a company can be killed by the broken US patent system.
Hope isn't dead. Jeffrey Citro, the Vonage CEO, claims that the company has come up with a way around the two patents, which describe the process of moving calls off the internet and into the phone system.
Ars Technica notes that "all three of the patents cover a concept rather than a specific application, making a workaround more difficult to employ." Citron himself sounds a little wooly on the subject, too, saying only "we believe they will work". Not very reassuring for customers.
Whether this is a true get-out-of-jail card for Vonage we don't know. It's possible it's just a tactic to gain the company a little more time. Either way, we wish them luck. Nobody likes a bully.
Vonage: We've got a workaround for Verizon patents [Ars Technica]
