Business VoIP Featured Article

Vonage Lands 19 New Patents, Lots More Likely to Follow

October 19, 2016

By Steve Anderson, Contributing Writer

Big news for Vonage recently landed as several of the company's patent applications bore fruit, giving the company fully 19 new patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, bringing the total to a cumulative 132. There's every possibility that that number could double in the coming weeks, however, as the company has a lot more patent applications waiting where those came from.


The newly-minted patents cover a lot of ground, and might well give Vonage some significant new competitive advantages when put to work in the field. One patent relates to integrating both communications services and third-party apps, and given the number of over-the-top (OTT) communications systems there are right now, that connection could be valuable. An additional five patents all cover security for the user and the service provider alike, allowing better detection of fraud in both call activity and instant messaging. So-called “spoofed” messages can also be more readily identified, their potential for harm mitigated accordingly.

A set of six patents focused on mobile features, including mobile messaging. One offered new means for a particularly smooth wireless handover operations, and one dealt with allowing users the ability to select a sender ID to go with outgoing messages. Five patents focused on call processing—including an algorithm that allows parties to reconnect even when both callers are trying to call each other back at the same time—and two focused on quality-of-service (QoS) matters. One patent featured a device that could automatically distribute available bandwidth between voice and non-voice applications to make for the best in voice quality.

Impressive enough, but Vonage has, at last report, around 200 more applications outstanding, which means the company might have a lot of new technological tricks up its collective sleeve fairly soon. That's great news, because the tricks Vonage already has are pretty impressive. Adding more to the mix will only thicken the wall of competitive advantage that Vonage has effectively placed between itself and its various competitors. It's going to be a lot tougher to compete with Vonage going forward, unless the company decides to license some of its patents and make the whole field better as a result. Yet here, even if it goes with licensing it will still have an edge in the market; the improved cash flow from licensing fees will at least partially go into further development and give Vonage even more technological power to add to the equation.

Vonage has a lot of great options right now thanks to its aggressive pursuit of new patents. What it does with these patents won't be clear for a while yet, but whether it puts these to work internally or licenses the patents out, it's got a great potential to clean up and take a bigger share of the market than ever on the strength of better service.




Edited by Maurice Nagle

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