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What makes AT&T a success but Vonage claw for air?
If you've been following the history of Vonage, you can probably find a few reasons, but the first and foremost reason is simple Intellectual Property.
Without patent protection, history has shown that the first to market has about a three year head start until the competition catches up. A successful technology company needs a healthy mix of good products, solid marketing, and Intellectual Property.
Intellectual Property
While Vonage spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year on marketing and provided service to an impressive 2 million phone lines, Vonage did not allocate resources to protect their product. Others did. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Nortel, and other telecommunications providers combined file tens of thousands of patents a year.
The lawsuits against Vonage have not ceased. After barely escaping injunctions, Vonage is surviving based on handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to its competitors in the form of legal settlements.
Protect yourself from being a victim of your own success.
Before you spend countless sleepless nights building up your business, make sure it will thrive. Your competition or potential competition is protecting their Intellectual Property with patents and trademarks. If you're successful, it may be for nothing without protection of your own. At your company, it is important to protect your new technology with patents, your trade names with trademarks, and your sense of calm by hiring a local and experienced Patent and Trademark Attorney such as Michael J. Feigin, Esq.