[Ecommerce] F5 sues competitors for patent infringement over cookie persistence technology

[Joy Spencer]

F5 Networks wins patent, files suit
Stephen Shankland, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
March 24, 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1035-993740.html



F5 Networks, a maker of networking gear for big Web sites, has patented 
a way to improve communications between Internet browsers and Web sites 
and sued three competitors for infringing that patent.

The patent, number 6,473,802, covers "cookie persistence," which makes 
it easier for a Web browser to resume an interrupted session on a Web site.

F5 said Wednesday it sued three competitors--Radware, NetScaler and 
Array Networks--for infringing the patent. The suits were filed in U.S. 
District Court in Seattle, the city where F5 is headquartered.
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On Friday, Radware and NetScaler said their products don't infringe; 
Array Networks declined to comment until further review of the suit.

"Upon our preliminary review, we believe that the lawsuit is without 
merit and we intend to vigorously defend it. Further, we believe that 
the claims do not affect any technology that is core to our business," 
Radware Chief Executive Roy Zisapel said in a statement.

F5's patent covers technology that improves the interaction of servers 
and desktop computers with Web browsers. Information such as shopping 
cart contents is often stored in files called "cookies" on desktop 
computers; F5 was awarded a patent that lets a Web traffic management 
device reunite a desktop computer with a particular server if the 
desktop computer user returns to the Web site.

F5 has used the cookie persistence technology in its hardware since 
1999. The company builds equipment used to balance a workload among 
numerous servers, a useful task in particular for large Web sites that 
use many servers to respond to heavy computing traffic.

The idea of seeking money from intellectual property assets is gaining 
in popularity among high-technology businesses. SCO Group, holder of 
Unix intellectual property originally developed at AT&T, has sued IBM 
for more than $1 billion. And HP has begun a program to profit from its 
patents.

F5 benefited from the computing gear spending spree during the Internet 
go-go years, but suffered after the bubble burst. In the last quarter of 
2002, F5 had net income of $520,000 on revenue of $27 million.


-- 
Joy Spencer
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367
Washington D.C. 20036

1.202.387.8030
1.202.234.5176