US and global content delivery network leader Akamai still has a case against Limelight network, but less of one after a US court struck down two out of three of its patent infringement claims in response to pre-trial motions.
The actual case has now begun and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts having issued a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement on US Patent No. 6,553,413, earlier in the week the judge had already said that Limelight does not infringe US Patent No. 7,103,645.
The Court now has to rule on Patent No. 6,108,703 which goes back to 1999 and which was purchased from a University and which has already stood up to legal scrutiny in other actions brought by Akamai. The patent refers to a way of spoofing a web location and actually serving a file from anywhere that the network prefers. Akamai has already agreed that it was no longer alleging willful infringement by Limelight which will mean lower damages if Limelight goes on to lose the case.
There are wide fears that these patents have made Akamai too dominant in CDN and that this will eventually be reflected in the pricing for content delivery over the web. It is also thought that many companies, Microsoft included, might be interested in acquiring Limelight once this suit has been resolved.
Limelight supplies content delivery services for over 1,000 companies, including Microsoft Xbox Live, Sony Playstation 3, Akimbo, Amazon Unbox, Belo Interactive, Brightcove, DreamWorks, Facebook, and MSNBC.com.