It seems like every day people discover even more prior art concerning the patents Verizon is using to
cut off Vonage. First there was evidence from
the VoIP forum that came out before Verizon applied for its patents. Then people turned up some
evidence of a patent from 3Com that predates the Verizon patents that appears to cover the same thing. Now, Jeff Pulver has been reminded that the work he did on Free World Dialup (FWD)
also appears to predate Verizon's patents by quite some time. Of course, all this prior art is great... but it likely comes way too late for Vonage. The process to get the Patent Office to even begin reviewing the patents in question will take some time, as will various responses and reviews. So don't think that just because there's a ton of prior art means that the patents are toast. Of course, the fact that these patents were granted in the first place despite all this prior art should get people to question how the patent office (doesn't) work, but it seems that few people are actually interested in digging deep into that question.