Cable and Wireless Sues Akamai For Patent Infringement

Cable and Wireless Akamai Technologies

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court here, alleges that Akamai's CDN products--including EdgeSuite and the Akamaizer, a tool for preparing content to be accessed at the CDN--violate a patent that Cable and Wireless received on July 2. The patent covers technology designed to ensure that only the timeliest information be sent to Web sites and to optimize content storage by avoiding duplication of data in a CDN, according to the carrier.

"We have attempted to get Akamai to acknowledge the broad scope of our intellectual property rights. Instead, they've responded with multiple lawsuits against us," said Chris Albinson, chief strategy officer for the carrier's Exodus and Cable and Wireless Service, in a statement. The Exodus and Cable and Wireless Service was formed when Cable and Wireless integrated hosting provider Digital Island, which it acquired in May 2001, with the Exodus business it acquired in November 2001.

The Cable and Wireless suit follows earlier patent-related litigation with Akamai. In December 2001, a jury found that Digital Island's Footprint content delivery service infringed on a patent issued to Akamai founders Tom Leighton and the late Danny Lewin. On July 1, 2002, the U.S. District Court in Boston granted Akamai a permanent injunction against the Footprint service. A hearing to set damages against Digital Island is expected to be held next year.

"We are familiar with new [Cable and Wireless patent," an Akamai spokesman said. "The patent is just another version of the same patent that Digital Island, now part of Cable and Wireless, previously asserted against Akamai. The jury already decided that we did not infringe on that patent. We're confident that we again do not infringe on this one either."