Digital Island loses to Akamai in court

Akamai and Digital Island have been battling over patent infringement since September 2000, but now the case seems close to being settled.

Late last year, the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts ruled on the case, which included claims that each company violated specific patents held by the other. But the jury found that only Digital Island, a Cable & Wireless company, is infringing on one of Akamai's patents.

Akamai originally delivered the first blow by suing Digital Island, claiming infringement on specific content delivery architecture patents, including patent numbers 6,108,703 and 6,003,030. Digital Island then sued Akamai claiming it infringed on the company's patent number 5,987,791, which details how to track content over a network.

The jury found that Akamai is not infringing on Digital Island's patent, but that Digital Island is infringing on Akamai's 6,108,703 patent.

The Federal Court in Massachusetts is expected to set a hearing date when damages will be decided. Digital Island says that the court's decision will not impact its customers or the way it supports its content delivery services.

Strangely enough, at first glance, both companies' press releases on this event read as if each won the court battle. But the fact is this case was about patent infringement and not who first came up with the idea to develop a content delivery network (CDN).

But according to Digital Island the issue of patent infringement will not end with this case. The company states that this is "one aspect of what is expected to be a multiyear effort to protect Digital Island's intellectual property and defend its status as the first inventor of CDN technology. Digital Island expects to appeal any adverse decisions affecting its intellectual property to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals," according to the company's press release.

So the battle may not soon be over.

Denise Pappalardo is a senior editor for Network World, covering ISPs, VPNs and related topics. Reach her at denisep@nww.com.

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