Vonage Settles Nortel Patent Lawsuit without Paying Monetary Damages

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Vonage Settles Nortel Patent Lawsuit without Paying Monetary Damages

6:00 am on January 1, 2008 | Category: Business, VoIP, Law

Vonage Holdings Corp. has settled a patent dispute with Canadian network equipment maker, Nortel Networks, putting to the rest the last major of the struggling VoIP provider’s recent legal disputes.

Nortel agreed to drop its suit against Vonage without demanding monetary damages, after the two companies reached a mutually beneficial agreement to cross license certain patents. Vonage has already settled patent lawsuits with Sprint Nextel, Verizon Communications, and AT&T, but all of these settlements came at a significant cost to the debt-ridden company.

“This is the last of them and we’re quite happy to put it behind us,” commented Charles Sahner, a spokesman for Vonage. Analysts believe that the apparent end of Vonage’s legal problems should pave the way for a more successful year in 2008.

“Vonage is at the tipping point of having one of their worst years to potentially having one of their best years,” commented Patrick Monaghan, a Boston-based Yankee Group analyst who doesn’t currently own any Vonage stock. “They’re really set to emerge and potentially become profitable.”

Vonage shares gained $0.30, or 15% yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange, to close at $2.30.