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HissyFitWatch: Google Sued By Frontier Communications Over Google Voice “Patent Infringement”

Phillip Dampier June 23, 2010 Frontier, HissyFitWatch, Video 4 Comments

Frontier Communications filed suit Tuesday against Google claiming the search giant stole its patent for giving users one phone number connecting their home, work and cell phones, the core feature of Google Voice.

Frontier, the independent phone company based in Stamford, Connecticut, claims it holds the patent for allowing a subscriber to “be reached on multiple telephone lines from a single dial-in number.”

“Google’s deliberate infringement of the patent has greatly and irreparably damaged Frontier,” the lawsuit charges.  Frontier is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction to stop the use of the technology.

The lawsuit distracted from Google’s announcement that Google Voice was out of beta and now available to anyone in the United States.  Google Voice lets users obtain a free phone number that will ring multiple telephones and screen calls.

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The one number follow-me feature is hardly new to either Google or Frontier.  Phone companies have offered similar features to businesses through telephone products like Centrex since the 1960s.

Frontier filed its lawsuit hours after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued Frontier’s requested patent.

“We believe these claims are entirely without merit, and we’ll defend against them vigorously,” said Google spokesman Andrew Pederson.

Frontier will likely face an uphill battle in its lawsuit, because the company’s patent request from 2007 comes two years after Google Voice’s predecessor, GrandCentral launched service in 2005.  Google acquired GrandCentral in 2007, rebranding it as Google Voice. GrandCentral offered the same “one number” feature Frontier is complaining about two years before the phone company applied for its patent.

Perhaps Frontier’s lawyers might acquaint themselves with the concepts of “prior art” and “first-to-invent.”

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Brion
Editor
13 years ago

…and people were worried that the Frontier / Verizon deal was going to be too much for Frontier’s finances. Clearly they are financial powerhouses to go up against one of the richest companies in the world with one of the more ridiculous patent claims I’ve ever seen. We all know how much of a thought leader Frontier is and how innovative and technologically advanced they are. By the way if it wasn’t abundantly clear, the preceding paragraph is oozing with sarcasm. If tens of thousands of people wouldn’t be without phone or internet I’d wish financial ruin on Frontier for… Read more »

Lance
Lance
13 years ago

So, Frontier have become patent trolls now???

I guess it’s easier to be a patent troll than upgrade their crappy DSL service to something from this century.

Please Frontier, leave the Rochester area now and let some other company in who can actually compete with Time Warner.

Jack
Jack
13 years ago

I had a friend who was using such a service at least 15 years ago – unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the service anymore but if I remember correctly, it came along right about the time commercial ISP’s started becoming popular. If anyone wants to search for mentions of prior art, one place to look would be the archives of the old Telecom Digest (at http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/ – it was also known as the Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom, which can be searched using Google Groups), which was one of the first forums on the Internet. And be aware that the… Read more »

Andrew Madigan
Andrew Madigan
13 years ago

Here’s hoping that Google drives Frontier into bankruptcy and another phone company takes over here in Rochester. Maybe we’d get fiber….

Of course, no one in their right mind would want Frontier’s territory, no chance of long-term growth (except maybe in Rochester and a few other areas).

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