US carrier Verizon has charged Internet phone carrier Vonage Holdings of violating patent rights that Verizon has on technology for making phone calls over the Internet, an Associated Press report said.
The report said the lawsuit was filed in a US District Court in Richmond, on behalf of subsidiaries Verizon Services and Verizon Laboratories.
Holmdel-based Vonage, which said it had been sued, contested the claim, the report said.
"Vonage believes that its services have been developed with its own proprietary technology and technology licensed from third parties, and intends to vigorously defend the lawsuit," the company said in a statement.
Vonage spokesman Mitchell Slepian declined to comment further, the report said.
Verizon charged that Vonage was infringing on at least seven of its patents regarding VoIP, the report further said.
According to the report, those patents included inventions related to gateway interfaces between a packet-switched and circuit-switched network, billing and fraud detection, call services such as call forwarding and voicemail, and methods related to Wi-Fi handset use in a VoIP network, the lawsuit said.