F5 Networks last week announced it had settled a patent dispute surrounding F5’s “Cookie Persistence” patent that enables key capabilities for traffic management and load-balancing products.

The two companies agreed to a cross-license agreement in which NetScaler will license the F5 Cookie Persistence patent and F5 will license a NetScaler patent. NetScaler will also pay F5 an undisclosed licensing fee.

Back in October 2002, F5 was awarded the patent for Cookie Persistence, a technology that uses an HTTP cookie stored on a customer’s computer to allow the customer to reconnect to the same server previously visited at a Web site.

This means that Cookie Persistence allows a traffic management device to direct the customer to the server that stored the customer’s shopping cart information. Without Cookie Persistence, the traffic management device could direct the customer’s request to a different server, which may or may not know about the customer and the customer’s shopping cart status.

In March 2003, F5 filed suit against NetScaler, along with Array Networks and Radware, in the U.S. District Court in Seattle, looking for “permanent injunctive relief and damages.”

In its settlement agreement with NetScaler, F5 will license NetScaler’s patented technology. The company will receive a license to the patent entitled “Internet Client-Server Multiplexer,” which NetScaler received in June 2002. The software frees servers from processing loads and improves the performance of network infrastructure, NetScaler says.

F5 has yet to resolve the patent suits with Array Networks and Radware.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.