Telcordia was awarded a U.S. patent for its method and system for media connectivity over a packet-based network. Stemming from developments covered in a patent filed by Telcordia in 1997, the newly issued patent addresses methods associated with the origination and termination of packet-based media connections. The company said its patented method consists of a reliable, distributed, scalable hardware-independent system. In addition to VoIP, this softswitch architecture supports delivery of residential and commercial voice over asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), video conferencing, data transfer, telephony and downloading video or other data. http://www.telcordia.com