Level 3 Patent Filing Against Limelight Networks CDN Now Online

I've gotten a hold of the filing and all of the documents associated with the Level 3 patent infringement suit against Limelight Networks as it pertains to Limelight's CDN offering. (Download Suit)

The filing talks to four CDN specific Level 3 patents including 6,185,598 - 6,473,405 - 6,654,807 - 7,054,935 some of which were originally granted to Sandpiper Networks back in 1998. After quickly reading through all of the documents two major things come to light.

The first is that the filing states that Level 3 sent Limelight a letter in February of 2007 informing Limelight of various patents owned by Level 3 that pertain to content delivery. Level 3 believes that after Limelight received knowledge of these Level 3 patents that Limelight did not re-design its CDN offering to avoid the claims of the Level 3 patents. While I don't expect Limelight to be able to talk about the suit publicly, the fact that Limelight had knowledge of the patents for nearly all of 2007 and didn't feel the need to license the patents from Level 3, that would leave one to think that Limelight feels it is not infringing on the patents or feels strongly that the patents will not hold up in court. UPDATE: On Monday Dec. 31st, Limelight issued a statement saying they "believe that these allegations are without merit, and intends to defend itself vigorously."

The second thing to note in the filing is that Level 3 says it is suffering damages in "an amount not yet determined" and as of the filing, Level 3 is not asking for any specific amount in damages.

For those who I know are going to ask, I don't expect this suit to stop any potential customers from using Limelight networks. The CDN space has seen many patent suits over the past 10 years and typically, customers don't have any real concern as nearly all of the major CDNs have gone through patent suits at one time or another.

Note: While I have worked as a consultant and expert witness on various patent suits pertaining to IP based video, I am not working on this case and have never worked on any lawsuit involving any content delivery network.

Level 3 Files Suit Against Limelight Networks Over CDN Patents

This morning, Google indexed a filing from December 17th from Level 3 Communications who filed a patent infringement suit against Limelight Networks (Case number 2:2007cv00589) in the District Court of Virgina. I have not been able to get a copy of the filing as of yet but I was able to speak to Level 3 about the filing this morning.

While Level 3 is not giving out many details of the suit, as is common in these cases, they were able to confirm that the patent(s) in question were acquired by Level 3 from SAVVIS as part of the sale of SAVVIS's CDN assets. Level 3 would not say how many patents are in question or give out patent numbers at this time, but they did say that the infringement relates specifically to content distribution. They would not say what kind of content distribution, video, static, applications etc... but were willing to say that the patent(s) in question have never been previously asserted in any patent infringement case.

Level 3 has over 850 worldwide patents and patent applications in their portfolio and did say that when they decided to get into the CDN business that they viewed having patents pertaining to the product as being a key factor that would help determine their long term success. At this time, Level 3 would not comment on any other networks who might be infringing on their patents or speculate on additional infringement cases.

I've put in a request to Limelight Networks and will update the post if I hear from them this weekend. I also expect to have a copy of the filing shortly and am looking to see what records exist that talk about the SAVVIS patents, which really comes from the Cable and Wireless patents that SAVVIS acquired.

Free Product Giveaway: MediaGate Wireless HD Media Player

UPDATE: Guillaume Courouge was selected as the winner using a random number picker website.

The nice folks over at MediaGate sent one of their MG-350HD Wireless HD Media Players for me to review, but with the holidays and other deadlines I am under, I won't have a chance to do a product review anytime soon. I did however find a really positive product review on the unit over at HomeTheaterBlog.com

Since I won't be able to review the unit, they have nicely said I can give it away to a reader of my blog. All you have to do is leave one comment on this post with a working e-mail address. I will pick one user at random a week from today and ship it out to the winner at no cost.  

If any company is interested in getting exposure for their video related product on my blog and is willing to give away the product, contact me. I will post pictures of the product, link to the company website and either write a product review or link to other reviews on the web. It's great exposure on a blog that does over 300,000 page views a month.

CDN Funding Continues: CDNetworks Raises $96.5 Million

Hot on the heels of EdgeCast announcing it had raised $6 million dollars, content delivery provider CDNetworks announced late yesterday that it had raised $96.5 million in private placement. For CDNetworks, this funding now gives them the ability to make a serious push in the U.S. market for content delivery of video and static content. The funding announcement also coincides with the launch of a new company website.

To date, CDNetworks primary business has solely been in Asia but over the past few months they have been out in the U.S. market selling services and ramping up their sales team. From the pricing I have seen in RFPs, they are not the low cost leader in the space and they are not, I repeat, not undercutting Limelight and others on price just to win market share. I think all CDN providers understand by now that they can't give this stuff away just to win market share and expect to stay in business. The pricing "war" that so many analysts are "speculating" on is completely overblown in the market. Just because a new provider enters the market does not mean they are selling on price.

Looking For A Brigthcove Guru For Help With Our Player

Now that we have our Brigthcove video player up on StreamingMedia.com, I am looking for someone who knows the Brightcove system well enough who can help customize our player using Brightcove's API as well as setup a bunch of new video titles and lineups for us in the system. Will pay an hourly rate to get the work done and it can be done a little at a time. If interested, please send me an e-mail with your hourly rate and  some background on your expertise with the Brightcove system.

Streaming Media West Session Videos Now Available

  You need Flash Player 8 (or higher) and JavaScript enabled to view this content

Thanks to ScribeMedia.org and Brightcove, we now have all of the conference sessions archived in video from the Streaming Media West 2007 show. You can access the videos from the home page of our website or at: www.streamingmedia.com/videos

In addition, I will be adding to our Brightcove player all of the videos from our past East, West and Europe shows as well. However, it will take me some time to upload all of the 300+ videos so please bear with us.

H.264 Makes It's Move: Moderate This Session At Streaming Media East

I've got another moderator spot open for someone who wants to organize a session at Streaming Media East around H.264 and talk to the major announcements that took place in the past year and what will become of H.264 next year. This session is probably more geared towards a technical discussion but should also cover content trends and usage adoption taking place in the market. H.264 is a hot topic and is only going to get hotter next year.

Ideally, the moderator is not from a vendor company or someone who is selling a product or service involved with H.264 of any kind or can convince me you don't have a conflict of interest. Again, bloggers and others who write and cover this topic for the industry are ideal. Send me an e-mail if interested.

Who Wants To Moderate A Session About Lifecasting: Kyte.tv, Justin.tv, Zannel and Seesmic?

I'm looking for an individual who covers the lifecasting segment of the industry and has been keeping a close eye on companies like Kyte.tv, Justin.tv, Zannel and Seesmic. I plan to have a session about this topic at the next Streaming Media East show in May in NYC and am looking for a moderator who wants to organize and lead this session.

The ideal candidate would be someone who is writing about these companies in the market, has a blog of their own, or has experience in what is required as a moderator to produce a quality session. If you're interested, please send me an e-mail along with a brief description of why this is a fit for you.

Limelight Networks and Microsoft Team Up To Deliver Paramount's Movie For Blockbuster

As many sites have been talking about over the past week, the new Jackass 2.5 movie by Paramount Pictures will be distributed exclusively on Blockbuster.com starting next week. The content will be using Microsoft's Silverlight platform and will be delivered by Limelight Networks.

I was going to wait to post about this until later this afternoon when I have a call with the companies involved, but a Microsoft blog posted about it last night. I will post most about the project later this afternoon.

Job Opening: Senior CDN Product Manager, Cisco Systems

Cisco currently has a job opening in San Jose, CA for a senior product manager focusing on CDN with both technical and marketing expertise. The position is responsible for identifying and driving Cisco strategy in the enterprise and service provider wholesale CDN market segments. The focus of this position is to build and implement the product and solution strategy for Cisco in these markets, working with the line product management team for strategy execution.

The individual filling this position will have extensive experience in the CDN market, most likely gained through mid/senior level career experience in engineering or technical marketing or product management at one of the CDN service providers or, possibly a CDN equipment company. The key requirement is that the individual have an excellent grasp of the factors driving the CDN business at the business and technical levels, plus demonstrated ability to translate this grasp into business strategy.

If interested, contact Brent Rogers at Cisco who is looking to fill the opening.