VoIP-Pal Gets Preemptive Twitter Suit Tossed on Patent Covenant

A federal judge in California tossed Twitter Inc.'s preemptive suit seeking a declaration that its products didn’t infringe a VoIP-Pal.com Inc. patent, after finding VoIP-Pal’s covenant not to sue “divests the court of jurisdiction.”

Twitter failed to show that the covenant didn’t cover “the potential infringement of its customers, which have never been accused of infringement in this or any other case between VoIP and Twitter,” Judge James Donato wrote in an opinion issued Tuesday for the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

He granted VoIP-Pal’s motion to dismiss the case, calling the decision “straightforward.”

Donato rejected ...