All of this has left outsiders shaking their heads at legal battles that seem to be accomplishing little for anybody, but are draining the resources of the companies involved. "When all the dust settles, I don't think (the lawsuits) will impact customers in any way," Batchelder said. Companies in the business of speeding Net traffic are hard-hit from the dot-com shakeout, leaving behind a tangle of lawsuits and allegations worthy of a soap opera. The few companies that remain after the dot-com shakeout have become bitter enemies, swapping allegations of rampant patent infringement, libel and even malicious hacking in the service of corporate greed.

This might have made more sense two years ago when Akamai's market capitalization was soaring near $35 billion, The stakes today are far smaller, and the ongoing hail of lawsuits has left analysts and customers asking whether the few remaining companies are crippling an already struggling sector with their bitter legal warfare, Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic, We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read, Discussion threads can tom selleck - replaceface iphone case be closed at any time at our discretion..

BT appeared to be losing the case almost from the start. In March, McMahon decided, in what is known as a Markman ruling, that many of BT's claims were invalid. A Markman ruling constitutes the first phase of patent trials and is concerned primarily with putting the words of the patent claim into plain English. The hyperlink patent--properly known as the Sargent patent--describes a system in which multiple users, located at remote terminals, can access data stored at a central computer. BT had argued that the Internet infringes the Sargent patent and that Prodigy facilitates infringement by its subscribers by providing them with access to the Internet.

"In contrast to what BT would have us believe," McMahon concluded, "there are no tom selleck - replaceface iphone case disputed issues of material fact in this case, Instead, the two sides reach vastly different conclusions based on the same set of facts, I find that, as a matter of law, no jury could find that Prodigy infringes the Sargent patent..either as part of the Internet or on its Web server viewed separate from the Internet, Prodigy's motion for summary judgment is therefore granted.", BT filed for the patent in the United States in 1976, The patent, No, 4,873,662, was issued to BT in the United States in 1989 and expires in 2006, The company said it only discovered the patent in a routine trawl through its own patents four years ago..

ZDNet UK's Matt Loney reported from London. Telecommunications giant BT loses its suit against Prodigy, in which it claimed the entire Internet infringed on its design for hyperlinking. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon awarded Prodigy its motion for summary judgment to have the case dismissed, saying that no jury could find that Prodigy infringes BT's patent. The ruling frees all Internet service providers from the threat of having to pay a license fee to BT for hosting pages that use hyperlinks--the building blocks of the Web. If BT had won and license fees had been imposed, the charges would have almost certainly been passed on to ISP customers.