In case you missed it, a judge recently ruled that since Vonage (Voice over the Internet Phone or VoIP phone provider) is using some patents designed by Verizon a long time ago, they can't acquire new customers using that technology.  An earlier trial on the patent infringement case awarded Verizon $58 million in compensation for Vonage's past use of the patents, plus future royalties for their continued use.  But the judge later ruled that an injunction of some form was appropriate to prevent Vonage from using the infringed patents to continue to steal customers away from Verizon, thus the injunction against acquiring new customers.  Wow!

How's it related to your talent?  First up, if you have Intellectual Property, make sure you are doing what you need to in handbooks and stand alone policies to safeguard it.  Also, on the workforce front, we have about 25 remote employees in our company that use Vonage or another VoIP provider to take the cost of the home office business line from the usual $60-$70 to $25 per line.  I also had some folks in the process of trading out lines, and I am sure I'll hear from them on this since they were "late adapters" (i.e., their $70 phone line had to be pried from their clenched hands). 

I'm a residential Vonage customer also, and it's sad to see them up against this, but patents are patents.  I just wish I didn't read things like this, which indicates Verizon and the other Bells could have given the consumer VoIP a long time ago but choose not to since it would mean a crash to their margins on normal POTS (plain old telephone service) lines....  So, the company doesn't roll out the service that is good for consumers and plays patent defense instead...