BREAKING NEWS: Damages vacated on Verizon v. Vonage appeal

A federal appeals court has vacated the $58 million in damages awarded to Verizon by a lower court that found Vonage guilty of patent infringement.

Three specific patents were at issue in the Verizon case. The three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined the lower court was right to find infringement on two, but it said the third had been improperly explained to the jury. The court thus vacated the damage award and the ruling on the third patent, and instructed the lower court to revisit the first two.

“We vacate in its entirety the award of $58,000,000 in damages and the 5.5 percent royalty and remand to the district court for further proceedings. We affirm the injunction as to the ’574 and ’711 patents. We vacate the injunction insofar as it pertains to the ’880 patent,” the appeals court ruled.

The initial $58 million award was handed down by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Verizon’s favor last March. A federal jury in Kansas City on Tuesday found Vonage in willful violalation of patenst owned by Sprint Nextel, which was awarded $69.5 million in damages.

For more:

- The Verizon appeal decision is here [1]

- The Kansas City Star has the Sprint Nextel verdict here [2]