Re:Oh for heaven's sake... (Score 1)

Not necessarily. The Blackberry suit was different in that the patent holder wasn't actually a competitor. An injunction would have been useless for NTP. They wanted a significant settlement/royalties so they could make some money.

Here, Vonage is a significant threat to Verizon's regular telephone service. Why settle the case if you can enjoin Vonage from signing up new customers, effectively forcing people to stick with their regular telephone provider (in many cases, Verizon)? In the long run, Verizon would probably make a lot more money by eliminating Vonage altogether than they would by settling the case. This also gives Verizon the option of getting into the VoIP business themselves somewhere down the line, with one less competitor.