Akamai, MIT Accuse Startup Cotendo of Infringing Web Patents
Akamai Technologies Inc., the provider of computing services that speed delivery of online content, accused startup competitor Cotendo Inc. of using the company’s patented technology without permission.
“Cotendo is a relative late-comer to the content-delivery services market,” Akamai said in a patent-infringement complaint filed in federal court in Boston yesterday. “In an effort to compete against Akamai as a low-cost provider, defendant Cotendo has implemented Akamai’s inventive systems and methods for content delivery.”
AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. phone company, is integrating Cotendo technology into its network, according to an Oct. 12 note to clients from Richard Fetyko, an analyst at Merriman Capital in New York. That may challenge Akamai’s business and increase the competitive market in 2011, he said.
Closely held Cotendo, founded in 2008, is funded by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Tenaya Capital. The company’s dynamic site-acceleration product, designed to make websites work faster, is “an attempt to sell services that embody Akamai’s inventions,” Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Akamai said in the complaint.
Officials with Sunnyvale, California-based Cotendo had no immediate comment on the complaint.
Akamai filed the lawsuit together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One patent, for a way to host and distribute content over the Internet, was issued in April to MIT, and Akamai is the exclusive licensee. The other patent, related to communications between Web clients, was issued in 2004 to Netli Inc., which Akamai bought in 2007.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified cash compensation and an order that Cotendo be barred from using the inventions.
The case is Akamai Technologies Inc. v. Cotendo Inc., 10cv11921, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Boston).
To contact the reporter on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sdecker1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net.
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