* F5 Networks, Radware put patent lawsuit to rest
F5 Networks and Radware last week settled their dispute over a cookie technology that F5 patented two years ago.
The technology stores cookies on a user’s computer and allows that user to reconnect with the same Web server that the user had visited previously. F5 was awarded U.S. patent number 6,473,802, entitled “Method and System for Storing Load Balancing Information with an HTTP Cookie” for this technology intended to speed customer Web site visits for online shopping.
Under the settlement agreement, the explicit terms of which are confidential, Radware will take a nonexclusive license to the F5 patent. This past summer the two companies were also in court when Radware sued F5 over a server load-balancing technology patent. Radware claims F5’s 3-DNS product, which does global load balancing and server redirection switching, works too similarly to Radware’s technology on its WSD box.
In March 2003, F5 began litigation in the U.S. District Court in Seattle against Radware, as well as NetScaler and Array Networks, soon after it was awarded the patent, stating the company was “looking for permanent injunctive relief and damages.”
In its September 2003 settlement agreement with NetScaler, the two companies established a cross-license agreement in which NetScaler would license the F5 Cookie Persistence patent and F5 will license a NetScaler patent. NetScaler would also pay F5 an undisclosed licensing fee. F5 would license NetScaler’s patented technology, which frees servers from processing loads and improves the performance of network infrastructure, NetScaler says.
The patent suit with Array Networks remains unresolved.
