The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (of all places)ruled in favor of Comcast Cable in a suit brought by Caritas Technologies.
Essentially Caritas Technologies was awarded a series of VoIP-related patents. One, in particular, Caritas claimed could be read to include calls that were made partly using VoIP connections and partly across the PSTN (public switched telephone network). Essentially, Caritas was claiming to have invented to capability to connect calls running partially on the PSTN and partially on IP networks.
Caritas Technologies were trying to ban Comcast’s digital Voice service as they said it infringed on their patent. Cartitas were seeking 2.2 billion dollars in compensation and were expected to win being that 78 percent of cases heard in Eastern Texas are ruled in favour of the plaintiff. However the court ruled against them.
This is only good news for customers, new companies providing services would only be hindered by paying royalties and hence drive the cost of VoIP up, reducing the competition out there and would certainly give a hand to the incumbent telephony providers. Â
I’m sure it won’t be the last battle but it is a huge win for Comcast and for all VoIP providers out there.
Calum
Â
