Cable & Wireless Internet Services, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies, Inc.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This suit involves the alleged infringement of United States Patent Number 6,275,470 (“the ’470 patent”), a patent relating to methods for determining an optimal path to route messages over a computer network. The ’470 patent describes methods to improve the transmission of messages by, first, identifying paths that a message can take from its source to its destination that are different from the “default path” that the message would otherwise take. The patented technology then compares these alternative paths to the default path and sends the message along whichever path is optimal from the perspective of the user.

More technically, the patent describes an “underlying network,” such as the Internet, whose “existing routing mechanisms” select a “default path” through the network to send a message from a source to a destination. Since the default path may not be the quickest (cheapest, most reliable, etc.), the ’470 patent describes an “overlay network” of “intermediate nodes” that create alternative paths that may be quicker (cheaper, more rehable, etc.). Thus, in one preferred embodiment, “[a]n overlay network of alternative routing mechanisms is…