Vonage, the top dog in the digital phone service arena, announced today that they had received approval on their first internally designed patent.

The patent is titled, “Method and Apparatus for Placing a Long Distance Call Based on a Virtual Phone Number.” and this tech patent will allow their customers to use a virtual number issued by Vonage to contact parties at distant locations without incurring long distance charges. This is a huge jump in the VoIP industry.

Jeffrey Citron, Interim CEO of Vonage was quoted as stating,”This is a major milestone for Vonage as we continue to keep innovation at the heart of our corporate value system,”

The patent is an interesting twist on the existing technology. The process includes a system that connects calls by converting virtual numbers at an originating point to a physical number associated with a destination point.

The virtual number allows a Vonage customer to have a secondary number where they can be reached. For example, one of Vonage’s 2.6 million subscribers that lives in Los Angeles can get a secondary phone number with the same area code as his mother that lives in New Jersey and that way when his mother makes a call to her son, she can simply dial the local secondary number and get connected with her son in Los Angeles without incurring any long distance charges.