Patent threat looms over dynamic web pages

Patents cover the way in which dynamic web pages are served

Former web acceleration company EpicRealm has filed lawsuits against 13 companies for allegedly infringing on two patents that cover the way in which many dynamic web pages are constructed and served.

The Texas-based company filed the first lawsuit seeking to enforce its patents last April against Speedera, a provider of internet and content acceleration services. Speedera has since been acquired by Akamai, the market leader in the web performance market. 

EpicRealm started going after end users in May, when it filed a lawsuit against six companies including dating websites eHarmony, It's Just Lunch and FriendFinder.

In early August a second group of six organisations were served with writs, including Herbalife, a maker of dietary supplements, and Macerich, a shopping mall operator.

If the patents are upheld in court, they could apply to "most modern e-commerce sites involved in dynamic web page generation and caching", according to Ira Rothken, founder of the Rothken Law Firm that is representing FriendFinder.

"My view would be that [the patents], if found valid, would be narrowly construed to a very rare architecture, otherwise it is likely that many major e-commerce sites that use a separate page server would have to pay a royalty," he explained.

Rothken claimed that the patents are invalid because of 'prior art', a legal term indicating that somebody else invented the technologies covered in the patents before EpicRealm.

The legal expert also argued that the patents do not apply to the technology used by FriendFinder because the website only employs a load balancing technology without any dynamic web page generation or separate page server.

Rothken further suggested that EpicRealm is merely out to collect licence fees from companies that want to avoid the legal costs.

According to the case's legal file, EpicRealm has dropped charges against It's Just Lunch without prejudice to facilitate settlement negotiations.

Representatives from eHarmony and Akamai declined to comment. It's Just Lunch, Herbalife and Macerich have not returned phone calls seeking comments at the time of going to press.

The two patents, referred to as 554 and 335, are related and were awarded in 1999 and 2002.

Documents filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office reveal that they describe methods for "creating and managing custom websites" and "managing dynamic website generation requests ".