Published in News

Vringo payout not great

by on07 November 2012



Shares drop


Shares of the mobile phone software maker Vringo plummeted by ten percent after a jury asked five companies, including Google to pay about $30 million for infringing its patents.

Vringo expected $696 million from the companies particularly after the court-appointed jury upheld the validity of Vringo's patents. However the jury asked Google to pay $15.8 million, AOL $7.9 million, IAC/InterActiveCorp-owned IAC Search & Media $6.6 million and Gannett Co Inc $4.3 million, Vringo said.

The company had inherited the lawsuit after it acquired Innovate/Protect (I/P), which is a patent troll outfit. I/P had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against AOL, Google, IAC, Gannett and Target Corp in 2011. The lawsuit against Google involves two patents that I/P bought from Lycos.

The jury found that reasonable royalty damages should be based on a "running royalty", and that the running royalty rate should be 3.5 percent, Vringo said.

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