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Akamai says cloud no cover for patent infringement; sues competitor
By adamg on Wed, 02/17/2016 - 9:19am
In a lawsuit filed this week, Cambridge's Akamai Technologies charges that basically everything that competitor Limelight Networks does violates three Akamai patents. Akamai wants a judge in US District Court in Boston to tell Limelight to knock it off and pay lots of damages for having that sort of nerve.
Both companies run "content distribution networks" that speed up Web sites by storing copies of the sites and their files on sites around the world, then feeding the closest copies to connecting browsers.
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| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Copy of the Akamai complaint | 233.82 KB |
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Comments
Akamai's actually HQ'd in
Akamai's actually HQ'd in Kendall Sq
Limelight in Burlington but HQ in SF.
You do know, don't you
Kendall Sq. is in Cambridge. So Akamai is HQ'd in Cambridge.
pretty sure
the article originally read burlington
you do know, dont you, that time is linear, and that things can be written before other things are edited?
Akamai is HQed in Cambridge
I'm not even sure we have an office in Burlington...
Not that I'm aware of any
Not that I'm aware of any nefarious behavior by Akamai, but does anyone have an informed opinion on whether or not this is a patent trolling case? I feel like global site storage has been established for so long, it seems weird to see this now, BUT I am far from an expert.
Indeed.
It's patent trolling to the extent that every software patent is patent trolling. Which is to say, absolutely it is, because everyone has been doing some version of it for thirty years but didn't get their name submitted to the patent office in time. Now it's just an arms race.
No
Disclaimer: Not speaking as an official representative of Akamai, nor am I an IP attorney
A patent troll is usually defined as a company or entity that acquires a patent but otherwise is not a part of the industry (i.e. they are neither the inventor nor do they produce anything that uses the patent). They make their money off of suing other people who infringe on the patent.
On the other hand, the patents in question here describe technology which a) was invented at Akamai and b) is a core part of our business.
Also, this isn't a "software" patent, per se. While it does involve software, what is being patented is the implementation of specific methods (such as distributed storage and migration of data). So, no, you can't have a patent on just storing a file on a bunch of servers all over the world (or at least you shouldn't be able to), but if you have a particular way of doing that, involving a combination of algorithms and system architecture, you can patent that. (Much of the time these are kept as trade secrets, rather than disclosed in a patent, for this exact reason).
The other problem with this
The other problem with this article is that Akamai is based in Cambridge, MA, not Burlington.
Akamai
Is in Cambridge, Adam.
Yes, I screwed up where Akamai is based
Fixed. I should hang my head in shame as a local reporter, because I should know that even though I hadn't yet had my morning coffee.
How does this relate to the previous case?
http://bloom.bg/1WlMhk6