Bill Wishon’s News and Views

On April 11th, Colorado based Two-Way Media filed suit against Akamai (AKAM), Limelight Networks (LLNW) and AT&T (T) over a series of patents entitled "multicasting method and apparatus". (patent description below) While this is just one of many patent suits taking place in the content delivery sector, there are a few unique details about this one to watch. For starters, Two-Way Media first filed suit against AOL and after a successful Markman ruling in their favor, AOL settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. That by itself does not mean anything as it may have been easier for AOL to settle rather than pay legal costs, but the fact they settled after a ruling is a bad sign.

Even more interesting in my eyes is that the main patent, number 5778187 was filed in 1996 and was licensed by Two-Way Media to Cable & Wireless in the early days of the content delivery market. For those that remember, Sandpiper and Digital Island were some of the original CDNs that were acquired by Cable & Wireless. There is no way to know if Cable & Wireless licensed the patents because they felt they were valid or not, but the fact another CDN even licensed it makes this suit even more interesting.