Remember how Vonage said it would try to find a way to continue providing internet telephone service to customers without violating Verizon's patent? Yeah, that might not work.

Last month, a federal jury found that Vonage's VoIP technology violated patents held by Verizon. A judge ordered Vonage to stop signing up new customers, but that order was stayed pending appeal.

Now it looks like all of Vonage's eggs are in that appeals basket. Because the company says Verizon's patent is so broad that it might not be possible to pass phone calls between the internet and telephone lines without violating (or licensing) Verizon's intellectual property.

On Friday, Vonage filed documents that suggest it would take months to set up a technical workaround -- if one could even be found. The company predicts (probably correctly) that its current customers would not stick around waiting for such a workaround to be found.

[via Techdirt]