Subject: [Sip] News flash: Verizon appears to have exclusive rights to IP telephony and SIP proxy operations

From: Dean Willis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 14:56:11 -0600

I don't normally discuss patent-related issues here, but this one has  
me worried.

According to C/NET (http://news.com.com/2100-1036_3-6162747.html)

"The broader dispute rests on allegations by Verizon that features  
central to the success of Vonage's offerings infringe on five of its  
patents. They relate to various aspects of commercial voice over  
Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service, including methods of connecting  
Internet calls to the public-switched telephone network, enabling  
features like call forwarding and voice mail, and allowing Internet  
phone usage via Wi-Fi hot spots."

If I'm reading this right (along with what I've managed to winkle out  
of the reporting coverage) it looks like the courts have proclaimed  
that Verizon has exclusive rights to processing phone numbers in a  
proxy, making conditional forwarding decisions based on presence,  
making calls from WiFi attached devices, and so on. This is amazingly  
huge, and very clearly has implications (if not overturned) on our  
work. Like, "We might as well all go home" sorts of implications.

You might take a look at patents 6,104,711  and 6,282,574 by Eric  
Voit, and 6,359,880 by James Curry and Robert Farris, as I believe  
the courts considered these in the Verizon vs Vonage case.

6,104,711's abstract:

An enhanced name translation server, for use on a packet data network  
such as the Internet, executes a conditional analysis in response to  
at least some queries or requests for name translations. For example,  
the server may return a different destination address at different  
times or in response to translation requests from different  
terminals. The server also can query a primary destination terminal  
device, and condition the response to the calling terminal on the  
status of the primary terminal. For example, if the primary terminal  
is `live` the server forwards the address of that terminal to the  
calling terminal device to set up communications. Otherwise, the  
server returns alternate destination address information. The server  
also supports a wide variety of different types of translations,  
including domain name to address, domain name to telephone number,  
and telephone number to address. The enhanced translations offer  
called customers numerous options for controlling communications  
directed toward them, and the customers may elect to apply these  
options both to their data communications services and their voice  
communications services through the packet data network.

6,282,574's abstract:

An enhanced name translation server, for use on a packet data network  
such as the Internet, executes a conditional analysis in response to  
at least some queries or requests for name translations. For example,  
the server may return a different destination address at different  
times or in response to translation requests from different  
terminals. The server also can query a primary destination terminal  
device, and condition the response to the calling terminal on the  
status of the primary terminal. For example, if the primary terminal  
is `live` the server forwards the address of that terminal to the  
calling terminal device to set up communications. Otherwise, the  
server returns alternate destination address information. The server  
also supports a wide variety of different types of translations,  
including domain name to address, domain name to telephone number,  
and telephone number to address. The enhanced translations offer  
called customers numerous options for controlling communications  
directed toward them, and the customers may elect to apply these  
options both to their data communications services and their voice  
communications services through the packet data network.

6,359,880's abstract:

A localized wireless gateway system provides wireless telephone  
communication, and for at least interexchange communication, provides  
voice telephone access to a public packet data network, such as the  
Internet. The wireless gateway system includes base station  
transceivers and a packet service gateway coupling the transceivers  
to the public packet data network. The packet service gateway  
compresses and decompresses voice frequency communication signals,  
and it sends and receives the compressed signals in packet form via  
the network. The packet service gateway also provides for signaling  
through the network to establish two-way voice communication  
sessions. In the preferred implementation, the localized wireless  
gateway system includes at least one radio port control unit coupled  
to the base station transceivers for controlling calls through the  
transceivers. The localized wireless gateway system also includes a  
telephone switch, such as a digital PBX, selectively providing  
telephone communication channels between the radio port control unit 
(s) and the packet service gateway. An access manager controls  
registration and validation of roaming wireless telephones to utilize  
the wireless gateway system. The access manager also transmits  
location information for registered wireless telephones to a home  
location register database via the network. The communications of the  
access manager to the home location register database permit  
telephone authentication as well as maintenance of accurate location  
information in the home location register identifying the current  
gateway through which a caller can reach the roaming user's wireless  
telephone.

_______________________________________________
Sip mailing list  https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/sip
This list is for NEW development of the core SIP Protocol
Use [email-masked] for questions on current sip
Use [email-masked] for new developments on the application of sip

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:23:56 -0600

At 02:56 PM 3/9/2007, Dean Willis wrote:
>Voit,

both of these appear to be more tuned towards an H.323 type of 
architecture, looking like the addresses returned in H.225 Set-up message(s)

>and 6,359,880 by James Curry and Robert Farris,

this one seems to hurt more, as I read the abstract, this appears to 
cover all hot-spots for Telephony over IP communications - including 
residential 802.11, if used for voice communications.

but I could be reading this completely incorrectly

>as I believe

---

From: "Medhavi Bhatia" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 16:27:15 -0500

I think that one was done in year 2000. Wasn't most of this stuff figured
out by then?

---

From: Byron Campen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 16:06:48 -0600

6,104,711 and 6,282,574 seem to be a specifying a "smart" DNS server  
to me, and not a SIP proxy. (Although it might be possible to  
convince a jury that a redirect-server fell into this category). It  
also seems that these are directly related to enum. 6,359,880 seems  
to be nastier, in that it appears to be a patent on the concept of  
registration over pretty much any medium (although they specify TCP/ 
IP, but nothing about UDP. I hope this doesn't mean that avoiding  
this patent will require using UDP exclusively...) I am not sure how  
they got around the fact that 2543 predates this patent's submission.  
I'll probably try tracking down the court transcripts at some point.

Best regards,
Byron Campen

>
> I don't normally discuss patent-related issues here, but this one  
> has me worried.
>
>
> central to the success of Vonage's offerings infringe on five of  
> its patents. They relate to various aspects of commercial voice  
> over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service, including methods of  
> connecting Internet calls to the public-switched telephone network,  
> enabling features like call forwarding and voice mail, and allowing  
> Internet phone usage via Wi-Fi hot spots."
>
> If I'm reading this right (along with what I've managed to winkle  
> out of the reporting coverage) it looks like the courts have  
> proclaimed that Verizon has exclusive rights to processing phone  
> numbers in a proxy, making conditional forwarding decisions based  
> on presence, making calls from WiFi attached devices, and so on.  
> This is amazingly huge, and very clearly has implications (if not  
> overturned) on our work. Like, "We might as well all go home" sorts  
> of implications.
>
> An enhanced name translation server, for use on a packet data  
> network such as the Internet, executes a conditional analysis in  
> response to at least some queries or requests for name  
> translations. For example, the server may return a different  
> destination address at different times or in response to  
> translation requests from different terminals. The server also can  
> query a primary destination terminal device, and condition the  
> response to the calling terminal on the status of the primary  
> terminal. For example, if the primary terminal is `live` the server  
> forwards the address of that terminal to the calling terminal  
> device to set up communications. Otherwise, the server returns  
> alternate destination address information. The server also supports  
> a wide variety of different types of translations, including domain  
> name to address, domain name to telephone number, and telephone  
> number to address. The enhanced translations offer called customers  
> numerous options for controlling communications directed toward  
> them, and the customers may elect to apply these options both to  
> their data communications services and their voice communications  
> services through the packet data network.
>
>
> 6,282,574's abstract:
>
> An enhanced name translation server, for use on a packet data  
> network such as the Internet, executes a conditional analysis in  
> response to at least some queries or requests for name  
> translations. For example, the server may return a different  
> destination address at different times or in response to  
> translation requests from different terminals. The server also can  
> query a primary destination terminal device, and condition the  
> response to the calling terminal on the status of the primary  
> terminal. For example, if the primary terminal is `live` the server  
> forwards the address of that terminal to the calling terminal  
> device to set up communications. Otherwise, the server returns  
> alternate destination address information. The server also supports  
> a wide variety of different types of translations, including domain  
> name to address, domain name to telephone number, and telephone  
> number to address. The enhanced translations offer called customers  
> numerous options for controlling communications directed toward  
> them, and the customers may elect to apply these options both to  
> their data communications services and their voice communications  
> services through the packet data network.
>
>
> 6,359,880's abstract:
>
> communication, and for at least interexchange communication,  
> provides voice telephone access to a public packet data network,  
> such as the Internet. The wireless gateway system includes base  
> station transceivers and a packet service gateway coupling the  
> transceivers to the public packet data network. The packet service  
> gateway compresses and decompresses voice frequency communication  
> signals, and it sends and receives the compressed signals in packet  
> form via the network. The packet service gateway also provides for  
> signaling through the network to establish two-way voice  
> communication sessions. In the preferred implementation, the  
> localized wireless gateway system includes at least one radio port  
> control unit coupled to the base station transceivers for  
> controlling calls through the transceivers. The localized wireless  
> gateway system also includes a telephone switch, such as a digital  
> PBX, selectively providing telephone communication channels between  
> the radio port control unit(s) and the packet service gateway. An  
> access manager controls registration and validation of roaming  
> wireless telephones to utilize the wireless gateway system. The  
> access manager also transmits location information for registered  
> wireless telephones to a home location register database via the  
> network. The communications of the access manager to the home  
> location register database permit telephone authentication as well  
> as maintenance of accurate location information in the home  
> location register identifying the current gateway through which a  
> caller can reach the roaming user's wireless telephone.
>
>

---

From: Dean Willis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 16:46:33 -0600

You guys are missing it. This is not a "this patent could be  
interpreted too broadly" warning, but a "This patent WAS interpreted  
in such a way that Vonage was ordered to pay close to $60M in damages  
-- you might be next" warning.

The courts appear (though I haven't gotten the detailed transcript  
yet) to be asserting that any VoIP routing decision based on logic  
applied to stuff like phone numbers and device status, SPECIFICALLY  
WHEN EMBODIED IN A SIP PROXY, belongs to Verizon. Sure, there's tons  
of prior art. Maybe it'll show up in court. But in the meantime, I  
suspect that anybody doing SIP commercially in the US is in danger of  
having to spend lots of money on lawyers. Many of us will probably be  
contacted by lawyers Real Soon Now to start having various time- 
sucking meetings.

We need to look VERY closely at this court decision, and consider our  
response. I don't know if there is anything we can do within the  
scope of our work to avoid this furball, but we need to do that  
analysis.

--
Dean

On Mar 9, 2007, at 4:06 PM, Byron Campen wrote:

> 	6,104,711 and 6,282,574 seem to be a specifying a "smart" DNS  
> server to me, and not a SIP proxy. (Although it might be possible  
> to convince a jury that a redirect-server fell into this category).  
> It also seems that these are directly related to enum. 6,359,880  
> seems to be nastier, in that it appears to be a patent on the  
> concept of registration over pretty much any medium (although they  
> specify TCP/IP, but nothing about UDP. I hope this doesn't mean  
> that avoiding this patent will require using UDP exclusively...) I  
> am not sure how they got around the fact that 2543 predates this  
> patent's submission. I'll probably try tracking down the court  
> transcripts at some point.
>
> Best regards,
> Byron Campen
>
> 	
>>
>> connecting Internet calls to the public-switched telephone  
>> network, enabling features like call forwarding and voice mail,  
>> and allowing Internet phone usage via Wi-Fi hot spots."
>>
>> overturned) on our work. Like, "We might as well all go home"  
>> sorts of implications.
>>
>> terminal. For example, if the primary terminal is `live` the  
>> server forwards the address of that terminal to the calling  
>> terminal device to set up communications. Otherwise, the server  
>> returns alternate destination address information. The server also  
>> supports a wide variety of different types of translations,  
>> terminal. For example, if the primary terminal is `live` the  
>> server forwards the address of that terminal to the calling  
>> terminal device to set up communications. Otherwise, the server  
>> returns alternate destination address information. The server also  
>> supports a wide variety of different types of translations,  
>> signals, and it sends and receives the compressed signals in  
>> packet form via the network. The packet service gateway also  
>> provides for signaling through the network to establish two-way  
>> voice communication sessions. In the preferred implementation, the  
>> PBX, selectively providing telephone communication channels  
>> between the radio port control unit(s) and the packet service  
>> gateway. An access manager controls registration and validation of  
>> roaming wireless telephones to utilize the wireless gateway  
>> system. The access manager also transmits location information for  
>> registered wireless telephones to a home location register  
>> database via the network. The communications of the access manager  
>> to the home location register database permit telephone  
>> authentication as well as maintenance of accurate location  
>> gateway through which a caller can reach the roaming user's  
>> wireless telephone.
>>
>>

---

From: Byron Campen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 16:55:53 -0600

Oh, I agree with you. I was just wondering how this case could have  
gone so far off the rails. Was _anyone_ in the IETF contacted about  
this case? If not, why not? It seems like the IETF would have been  
the obvious place to go for incontrovertible evidence of prior art.

	I have been unable to find a transcript, but if anyone does, please  
make it known. I am itching to read it.

Best regards,
Byron Campen

> interpreted too broadly" warning, but a "This patent WAS  
> interpreted in such a way that Vonage was ordered to pay close to  
> $60M in damages -- you might be next" warning.
>
> WHEN EMBODIED IN A SIP PROXY, belongs to Verizon. Sure, there's  
> tons of prior art. Maybe it'll show up in court. But in the  
> meantime, I suspect that anybody doing SIP commercially in the US  
> is in danger of having to spend lots of money on lawyers. Many of  
> us will probably be contacted by lawyers Real Soon Now to start  
> having various time-sucking meetings.
>
> We need to look VERY closely at this court decision, and consider  
> our response. I don't know if there is anything we can do within  
> the scope of our work to avoid this furball, but we need to do that  
> analysis.
>
> --
> Dean
>
>
>> to convince a jury that a redirect-server fell into this  
>> category). It also seems that these are directly related to enum.  
>> 6,359,880 seems to be nastier, in that it appears to be a patent  
>> on the concept of registration over pretty much any medium  
>> (although they specify TCP/IP, but nothing about UDP. I hope this  
>> doesn't mean that avoiding this patent will require using UDP  
>> exclusively...) I am not sure how they got around the fact that  
>> 2543 predates this patent's submission. I'll probably try tracking  
>> down the court transcripts at some point.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Byron Campen
>>
>> 	
>>>
>>> "The broader dispute rests on allegations by Verizon that  
>>> features central to the success of Vonage's offerings infringe on  
>>> five of its patents. They relate to various aspects of commercial  
>>> voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service, including methods  
>>> of connecting Internet calls to the public-switched telephone  
>>> Voit, and 6,359,880 by James Curry and Robert Farris, as I  
>>> believe the courts considered these in the Verizon vs Vonage case.
>>>
>>>
>>> 6,104,711's abstract:
>>>
>>> translation requests from different terminals. The server also  
>>> can query a primary destination terminal device, and condition  
>>> the response to the calling terminal on the status of the primary  
>>> returns alternate destination address information. The server  
>>> including domain name to address, domain name to telephone  
>>> number, and telephone number to address. The enhanced  
>>> translations offer called customers numerous options for  
>>> controlling communications directed toward them, and the  
>>> customers may elect to apply these options both to their data  
>>> communications services and their voice communications services  
>>> through the packet data network.
>>>
>>>
>>> 6,282,574's abstract:
>>>
>>> translation requests from different terminals. The server also  
>>> can query a primary destination terminal device, and condition  
>>> the response to the calling terminal on the status of the primary  
>>> returns alternate destination address information. The server  
>>> including domain name to address, domain name to telephone  
>>> number, and telephone number to address. The enhanced  
>>> translations offer called customers numerous options for  
>>> controlling communications directed toward them, and the  
>>> customers may elect to apply these options both to their data  
>>> communications services and their voice communications services  
>>> through the packet data network.
>>>
>>>
>>> 6,359,880's abstract:
>>>
>>> transceivers to the public packet data network. The packet  
>>> service gateway compresses and decompresses voice frequency  
>>> communication signals, and it sends and receives the compressed  
>>> signals in packet form via the network. The packet service  
>>> gateway also provides for signaling through the network to  
>>> establish two-way voice communication sessions. In the preferred  
>>> implementation, the localized wireless gateway system includes at  
>>> least one radio port control unit coupled to the base station  
>>> transceivers for controlling calls through the transceivers. The  
>>> localized wireless gateway system also includes a telephone  
>>> switch, such as a digital PBX, selectively providing telephone  
>>> communication channels between the radio port control unit(s) and  
>>> the packet service gateway. An access manager controls  
>>> registration and validation of roaming wireless telephones to  
>>> utilize the wireless gateway system. The access manager also  
>>> transmits location information for registered wireless telephones  
>>> to a home location register database via the network. The  
>>> communications of the access manager to the home location  
>>> register database permit telephone authentication as well as  
>>> maintenance of accurate location information in the home location  
>>> register identifying the current gateway through which a caller  
>>> can reach the roaming user's wireless telephone.
>>>
>>>

---

From: "Chris Steck" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 15:20:13 -0800

fwiw, it's a really really bad idea to be discussing patents on a reflector,
and could have the exact opposite affect you all are hoping for by
potentially increasing the liability of anyone who has been deemed to have
"read" them because the info was pushed to them, and then "wittingly"
continues to infringe.  

May I suggest that this be taken off the reflector.  The people who fight
these things for a living definitely know how to get prior art.

-Chris

---

From: "William Mandra" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 21:41:59 -0500

>From what I've been able to read on this, the case seemed to be focused
on whether or not Vonage violated any of Verizon's patents, and not the
validity of the patents themselves. It wouldn't surprise me if Vonage
appeals the decision and it ends up being overturned. There is clearly
enough prior art to invalidate these patents, but I agree if this
decision does stand it's a HUGE blow to the SIP and VoIP communities and
"we might as well all go home"....

Bill

William Mandra
M-Networks
973.559.5200 x1001
862.371.8661 (mobile)
[email-masked]

---------------------------------------------------

Advance your business with the power of technology.

http://www.m-networks.net

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dean Willis [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 3:56 PM
> To: SIP IETF
> Subject: [Sip] News flash: Verizon appears to have exclusive rights to
> IPtelephony and SIP proxy operations
> 
>

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:11:44 -0500

From: Byron Campen <[email-masked]>

   Oh, I agree with you. I was just wondering how this case could have
   gone so far off the rails.

Well, how many bad programmers are there out there?  Now think about
how many bad patent lawyers there are out there.

   Was _anyone_ in the IETF contacted about this case? If not, why
   not? It seems like the IETF would have been the obvious place to go
   for incontrovertible evidence of prior art.

Actually, the major conventional source for prior art is the US Patent
Office.  In many areas of technology, especially the well-established
ones, the companies that develop it patent every innovation, so the
patent records are a nearly complete database of everything that is
known about the subject.

The second source for prior art are the various journals and
magazines.

Beyond that, it's hard to search the prior art, because there are no
databases you can search.

As for "incontrovertable", not much that the IETF involves beyond RFCs
is incontrovertable as to the technology and the date it was
published.  Among other things, we so carefully try to erase
Internet-Drafts after their 6 months are up.  Wouldn't it be annoying
to realize that a patented innovation was described in an
Internet-Draft two years previously, but there are no copies of it
left?

Dale

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:55:56 -0500

It looks to me like these two patents are about a DNS server (or
something like it) which returns different results depending on some
property of the querier or the external situation.  Which doesn't seem
to cover proxies, or even the redirect servers that I've seen (as they
don't genrate variable responses based on the querier).

   6,359,880 seems to be nastier, in that it appears to be a patent on
   the concept of registration over pretty much any medium (although
   they specify TCP/ IP, but nothing about UDP.

Well, read the claims at
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6359880.PN.&OS=PN/6359880&RS=PN/6359880
The independent claims are 1, 9, and 10, and all of them state that
the registering device is wireless, and that the backhaul network is a
public packet network.  Neither idea is new, but is there a published
reference to the combination more than a year before this patent's
application date (Mar. 11,1997)?

Dale

---

From: Byron Campen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:38:52 -0500

> don't genrate variable responses based on the querier).
	Exactly my interpretation, but I can definitely see a jury of non- 
technical people being convinced otherwise.

> http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser? 
> Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO% 
> 2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6359880.PN.&OS=PN/6359880&RS=PN/6359880
	Whoops, I misread claims 12-14. So did Vonage get in trouble for  
selling cordless handsets?

Best regards,
Byron Campen

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:05:02 -0500

I've no idea, as nobody seems to have bothered to even track down the
judge's decision.

But there does seem to be a prima-facie problem in regard to a UA
sending registration back to a server over a wireless last-hop network
and a public packet long-haul network.  If you're interesting in
selling something like that, you should get a good lawyer.

One thing I notice is that the prior-art cutoff for this patent is
March 1996, which is 11 years ago, and 3 years before RFC 2543.  The
original 802.11 was apparently approved in 1997.  So it's possible
that nobody then had thought of a wireless phone talking WiFi to a
base station that used the Internet to register with its
point-of-contact server.

Dale

---

From: "Medhavi Bhatia" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 15:25:38 -0800

Wasn't the Verizon folks there at the time 2543 was voted on? I think there
must be a requirement in IETF that you must speak at that time if you are
present ;)

---

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:34:28 -0700

> base station that used the Internet to register with its
Or more likely that nobody thought that yet another L2 substrate
for IP was worthy of anything but a history lesson for somebody
who thought that it was unique.

But I find this rather curious... wasn't ATM supposed to wipe out
this IP tomfoolery around 1996 according to the telephants? Are
people sure that this patent isn't really restricted to 53 byte payloads
of goodness?

       Mike

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:41:04 -0500

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>

The reality is that the US courts are getting less likely to consider
a combination of previous inventions as rendering "obvious" a later
patent which claims the combination.  So if you really want to break
this patent (rather than just whine about it), finding a published
reference to such a system prior to March 1996 is the surest way to
get the job done.

If you *do* find such a reference, for a small fee you can file a copy
of it with the Patent Office, which will include it in the set of
prior art documents that is kept with every patent.  Since anyone who
is sued by the patent holder requests a copy of the prior art
documents, if the prior art clearly breaks the claims in the patent,
it nullifies the patent holder's ability to sue.

I'm told that a lot of data pipes are ATM below the IP layer,
especially the various forms of DSL.  But in regard to this patent, I
don't see ATM mentioned in the claims, so it probably isn't relevant.

Dale

---

From: "James Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:42:53 -0400

The WayBack Machine -- http://www.archive.org/web/web.php has proven very
helpful to the folks debunking the SCO lawsuit against the Linux community.

Perhaps it will contain some of those documents deleted from the "official"
IETF websites (not to mention other non-IETF documents) that could negate
the VZ patents?

James T Smith
Critical 1 Consulting, Inc.
http://www.critical1.com/
PO Box 4188
Clarksburg, WV 26302
304-657-4258

-----Original Message-----
From: Dean Willis [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 3:56 PM
To: SIP IETF
Subject: [Sip] News flash: Verizon appears to have exclusive rights to
Importance: High

I don't normally discuss patent-related issues here, but this one has me
worried.

"The broader dispute rests on allegations by Verizon that features central
to the success of Vonage's offerings infringe on five of its patents. They
relate to various aspects of commercial voice over Internet Protocol, or
VoIP, service, including methods of connecting Internet calls to the
public-switched telephone network, enabling features like call forwarding
and voice mail, and allowing Internet phone usage via Wi-Fi hot spots."

If I'm reading this right (along with what I've managed to winkle out of the
reporting coverage) it looks like the courts have proclaimed that Verizon
has exclusive rights to processing phone numbers in a proxy, making
conditional forwarding decisions based on presence, making calls from WiFi
attached devices, and so on. This is amazingly huge, and very clearly has
implications (if not overturned) on our work. Like, "We might as well all go
home" sorts of implications.

You might take a look at patents 6,104,711  and 6,282,574 by Eric Voit, and
6,359,880 by James Curry and Robert Farris, as I believe the courts
considered these in the Verizon vs Vonage case.

6,104,711's abstract:

An enhanced name translation server, for use on a packet data network such
as the Internet, executes a conditional analysis in response to at least
some queries or requests for name translations. For example, the server may
return a different destination address at different times or in response to
translation requests from different terminals. The server also can query a
primary destination terminal device, and condition the response to the
calling terminal on the status of the primary terminal. For example, if the
primary terminal is `live` the server forwards the address of that terminal
to the calling terminal device to set up communications. Otherwise, the
server returns alternate destination address information. The server also
supports a wide variety of different types of translations, including domain
name to address, domain name to telephone number, and telephone number to
address. The enhanced translations offer called customers numerous options
for controlling communications directed toward them, and the customers may
elect to apply these options both to their data communications services and
their voice communications services through the packet data network.

6,282,574's abstract:

An enhanced name translation server, for use on a packet data network such
as the Internet, executes a conditional analysis in response to at least
some queries or requests for name translations. For example, the server may
return a different destination address at different times or in response to
translation requests from different terminals. The server also can query a
primary destination terminal device, and condition the response to the
calling terminal on the status of the primary terminal. For example, if the
primary terminal is `live` the server forwards the address of that terminal
to the calling terminal device to set up communications. Otherwise, the
server returns alternate destination address information. The server also
supports a wide variety of different types of translations, including domain
name to address, domain name to telephone number, and telephone number to
address. The enhanced translations offer called customers numerous options
for controlling communications directed toward them, and the customers may
elect to apply these options both to their data communications services and
their voice communications services through the packet data network.

6,359,880's abstract:

A localized wireless gateway system provides wireless telephone
communication, and for at least interexchange communication, provides voice
telephone access to a public packet data network, such as the Internet. The
wireless gateway system includes base station transceivers and a packet
service gateway coupling the transceivers to the public packet data network.
The packet service gateway compresses and decompresses voice frequency
communication signals, and it sends and receives the compressed signals in
packet form via the network. The packet service gateway also provides for
signaling through the network to establish two-way voice communication
sessions. In the preferred implementation, the localized wireless gateway
system includes at least one radio port control unit coupled to the base
station transceivers for controlling calls through the transceivers. The
localized wireless gateway system also includes a telephone switch, such as
a digital PBX, selectively providing telephone communication channels
between the radio port control unit(s) and the packet service gateway. An
access manager controls registration and validation of roaming wireless
telephones to utilize the wireless gateway system. The access manager also
transmits location information for registered wireless telephones to a home
location register database via the network. The communications of the access
manager to the home location register database permit telephone
authentication as well as maintenance of accurate location information in
the home location register identifying the current gateway through which a
caller can reach the roaming user's wireless telephone.

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