via sometimes snarky tech blog Engadget, the madness that is the technology patent system lately:

Verizon's patents may be illegitimate. Apparently the two patents in question, 6,104,711 (filed March 6, 1997) and 6,282,574 (filed February 24, 2000) may themselves use technology openly discussed and published by VocalTec back in 1996. In fact, it may also indirectly include technology input from the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Nortel, etc. made during the VoIP Forum in 1996, with the businesses' original intentions that this tech be used in future open standards.

There's more...

It's starting.

Shaw Communications and its Canada-based cable MSO subsidiary have filed a series of court documents that aim to "set to record straight" regarding a "Quality of Service Enhancement" package being offered to Vonage customers and customers of other third-party VoIP services that leverage the public Internet.

The documents, filed in the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary, note that Shaw's IP-based phone service is offered over the operator's QoS-enabled, managed network, while Vonage's service travels the public Internet and is open to packet delays and other "inherent limitations."

Shaw reiterated that its high-speed data customers who also use the Vonage service can take the QoS Enhancement service on a completely optional basis. The enhancement runs $10 per month.

Vonage has previously complained of the tactic, referring to it as a "thinly-veiled VoIP tax," and has since requested that the Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission step in to investigate the matter.

Welcome to a non-neutral internet.

Please call your Senators.

There's more...