Interpid reporter Andy Abramson digs this one up… Perhaps there’s some movement in the Vonage patent matter, as 3Com apparently filed a patent in 1996 (patent number 6,529,501), which references the same approach, but might be considered prior art. I’m not a patent lawyer (don’t even play one on TV), but if it’s true that the Verizon patent’s don’t even list this one, it might mean trouble for the patent defense. It strikes me as a little odd though, as it was trivial for me to use google to figure out what patents it itself referenced, or those that mentioned internet telephony. Why didn’t the lawyers see this one coming a year ago?

Here’s an answer : it’s muddy. A few weeks ago, a blogger gave a quick history of Voice Over IP. Trouble is… it’s basically wrong. VocalTek no more invented voice over IP than Gutenburg invented books. (And that’s giving a lot of credit to VocalTek, whom I respect nonetheless.) Just like Ana Nicole’s baby, VoIP has many, many fathers – and it mucks up prior art big time. Let’s look at some of the happy fathers not mentioned by the bloggers, and probably not mentioned by the patent attorneys, either :

• H.323 was finalized in November 1996, written by many of my fellow employees at PictureTel, firmly establishing that nearly all of the ideas it contained were known in the community for at least two years prior, including naming conventions, gateways, etc.
• Of course, H.323 was not born in a vacuum. It’s father, H.320 was developed in the late 1980’s, introducing packetized media and call control over WAN networks. It’s where most of the G.7xx codecs come from. H.320 has gateways, and admission controls, conversions between synchronous networks…. sound familiar at all?
• And of course, H.320 wasn’t the first one either. How could it be? Px64 predated H.320 and was used as a major part of the spec, along with tight integration with Q.931. Yes, that SS7 spec. Anyone in Peabody at that time knew all about voice, video, packets, synchronous streams. I’m pretty sure that Regan was president.
• I remember listening to “geek of the week” in College around 1985-1986. Audio? Yup. Internet? Yup. Real time? Well, maybe not. I’ll give you that one.
• Who could forget the ATT PicturePhone in 1970?
• World’s Fair anyone?

I could go on all day, but I have this funny eating habit, and I need to go make some money to keep it going. Engineering and technology is much more like a Wiki than a Word document. No one person invented voice over IP, and it’s been here forever. If anyone tells me that the new thing with Voice Over IP is video, I’m going to barf. Literally. I’ve been at this since the early 90’s at PictureTel, and I know people who I think are the old timers – and they view me rightly as a newbie. Expect a patent lawyer to understand that one? Yeah, me neither.

A long time ago, I worked with a completely brilliant man named Bernard. I wish I had taken more careful notes while we worked together, because I find that I continually hear his voice in the back of my head giving advice. When I caught that Andy Abramson blogged about Vonage not having a work-around for the Verizon patent, Bernie’s voice appeared yet again. Unlike all the other times disembodied voices appear, I welcome his voice.

“There are two kinds of engineers – those that know how to get unstuck, and those that don’t. All engineers get stuck on problems, and some stay that way.” We used to hire and team up engineers on this principal, making sure that the junior engineers were paired with a senior engineer to forestall this very phenomenon.

Is Vonage stuck? I can’t believe it. How is it possible that, given all of the heads up, given the time in court, given the nearly infinite possibilities of implementation choices, that there is no workaround. I wish that I was not so full-out on all of my current designs, because I would take a crack at this one for free. (Oooohh…. Bernie’s voice again. Not for free – right. Thanks, Bernie.) I simply cannot believe that there isn’t a senior engineer in Vonage with the WD-40 to get this problem unstuck.

Somebody, please read that patent for me and tell me what the big deal is.

Given the exploits of my ancestors, you might think that I would be a big fan of patents. In fact, I am, but I have to admit, some of the patents I see look pretty darn sketch.

Which brings me to this wonderful analysis of the patents that Verizon used against Vonage. The most troubling one is the thought that Verizon actually patented the TDM to Packet Gateway. Remember that story about the guy who patented the XOR chip that made the blinking cursor? I can just imagine that “Can you hear me know?” guy knocking on every gateway and service provider door saying something different.

I should thank all those customers who have retained me in the last few years to work on their defense against the VoIP patent trolls, but that fact is that I am not, nor will ever be, a patent attorney. (Unlike patent attorneys, I laugh. A joke! It’s a joke! You gotta tell them when it’s a joke.) If I wasn’t so darn busy, I would read it through and figure it out. Anyone out there bored? Let me know.