A firm that holds patents for technology used in Internet voice calling is suing search giant Google Inc. for US$5 billion
over its Google Talk instant-messaging client, according to court papers.
Rates Technology Inc. (RTI), a small, New York company that holds patents to telecommunications technologies but does not
sell products, filed suit in October against Google, claiming the Mountain View, California, company is using two technologies
RTI has patented but has not licensed them.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in October, but surfaced first in published
reports this week.
Google uses the two technologies, which are for minimizing the cost of long-distance telephone calls, in the VOIP service
of its Google Talk VOIP client, according to court papers.
"Google's wrongful acts have damaged and will continue to damage RTI irreparably, and RTI has no adequate remedy at law for
those wrongs and injuries," the company said in court papers.
Google has been notified of its patent infringement and given a chance to remedy the situation by licensing technology from
RTI, "but has refused to do so," the company said in its court filing.
RTI is demanding a trial by jury to settle the suit, according to court papers.
Rich Tehrani, VOIP industry watcher and president of Technology Marketing Corp., has written about RTI in several entries
on his "VOIP Blog" (http://voip-blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/).
In an e-mail interview Friday, Tehrani said that RTI founder and President Jerry Weinberger invented least-cost routing technology
that allows a phone system to find the cheapest carrier prior to placing a phone call. This technology is part of what enables
VOIP calls to work. Other companies, such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc., have already paid RTI to use
its patented technology, he said.
In an e-mailed statement from Google spokesman Steve Langdon, the company said it believes the lawsuit is "without merit"
and plans to fight it.
RTI could not be reached for comment Friday.
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(InfoWorld) - In the litigious world we live in, deploying a unified communications platform in your enterprise could...
