VoIP Patent Holder May Lose Rights

VoIP, what is this thing called VoIP? VoIP stands for voice over Internet protocol—in short it’s a telephone system that uses the Internet to send messages instead of traditional phone lines. VoIP systems have been gaining popularity for a while now through businesses such as Vonage and Skype, but who actually owns the rights to the technology behind this phone system? As of right now C2 Communications Technologies hold the patent, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF has sent a request to the U.S. Patent Office to re-examine C2’s patent for VoIP phone systems. The EFF has set out on a mission to bust technology patent holders who they believe should have never even gotten the patent. Calling this effort the Patent Busting Project, the EFF is hoping to, "combat these annoying and often dangerous legal weapons to take down some of [the] worst offenders," and C2 is on their top ten worst offenders list. The reason the EFF is asking for the re-examination is simple, they believe C2 didn’t correctly site where they got all of their information. Accordingly they believe Bharat Doshi and other employees from Lucent Technologies should hold the right since they were granted a patent in 1994 (C2 got the VoIP patent in 2001) that holds much of the same information that the C2 patent is claiming. Another concern the EFF has is how C2 is using their patent to sue other companies such as AT&T and Verizon. EFF's legal director Cindy Cohn told PC World, "VoIP is one of these kinds of technologies that really frees people…EFF is worried that fear of lawsuits by C2 could inhibit developers from making new VoIP products available. Meanwhile, its patent is one that never should have been granted." The EFF also believes with these types of lawsuits, C2 is infringing on any new developments for IP phone system technology itself. If you are wondering when we will here news of this review, it is going to be a while. It will take the Patent Office anywhere from 8 months to a year to decide--and longer if C2 files for an appeal.