The war of governments against terrorism is now becoming a reality as companies work on developing VoIP communications intercept technologies. Voip-Pal.com is having a head start in this field with its Lawful Intercept. The corporation asserts that it owns the first patented method of VoIP communications interception in the US.
Voip-Pal.com Inc applied for a patent for its Lawful Intercept technology (U.S. Patent No. 8,422,507) in 2007, which was two years before the filing of Microsoft Corporation for a patent for its Legal Intercept (US Patent Application 20110153809). In 2011 the USPTO rejected Microsoft's Legal Intercept and Voip-Pal's Lawful Intercept was given priority in spite of the substantial similarities of both patent applications due to its earlier filing date. In January, 2013 Lawful Intercept was allowed and in April it was issued as a patent.
There has been rapid growth of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) industry as the traditional landline subscriptions suffer a decline. In 2012 the revenues collected in the industry were $63 billion and at present the growth is a double digit. It is expected that by 2015, the mobile VoIP subscribers will have reached 410 million. The implication of this on the traditional wiretapping is that it's being rendered obsolete and law enforcement agencies have to look for alternative ways of intercepting VoIP communication.
Comments