Akamai Victorious in Digital Island Patent Litigation.

Business/Technology Editors

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 2001

Jury finds Digital Island infringes key Internet content delivery

patent; Akamai found not to be infringing Digital Island patent

An eight-person jury in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts returned a verdict today that Digital Island, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cable & Wireless plc., is infringing a patent asserted by Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM). The same jury also found that Akamai is not infringing a patent owned by Digital Island.

The verdict, which came at the end of a two-week trial in Boston, was the result of lawsuits filed by the companies last year. Akamai had sued Digital Island for infringing two Internet content delivery patents. The patents asserted by Akamai in the suit are U.S. patent 6,108,703 issued in the name of Akamai founders, Tom Leighton and the late Danny Lewin, and U.S. patent 6,003,030 owned by Akamai. The jury found Digital Island infringes the '703 patent, but not the '030 patent.

Digital Island had sued Akamai for infringing Digital Island's U.S. patent 5,987,791, and the jury found Akamai does not infringe that patent.

"We are extremely pleased with the jury's verdict and gratified that Akamai has been validated as an innovator responsible for creating important new technology that improves the performance of the Internet," said George Conrades, chairman and CEO of Akamai.

The jury was not asked to consider damages in this trial. The issue of damages is subject to a separate trial at a later date.

About Akamai

Akamai(R) is a leading provider of secure, outsourced e-business infrastructure services and software. These services and software enable companies to reduce the complexity and cost of deploying and operating a uniform Web infrastructure while ensuring unmatched performance, reliability, scalability and manageability. Akamai's services give businesses a distinct competitive advantage and provide an unparalleled Internet experience for their customers. Akamai's intelligent edge platform for content, streaming media, and application delivery comprises more than 13,000 servers within over 1,000 networks in 63 countries. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Akamai provides services to hundreds of companies worldwide. For information on Delivering a Better Internet(SM), visit www.akamai.com.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act 

The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, general economic conditions, the dependence on Akamai's Internet content delivery service and technology products, any inability of the company's services to meet the needs of governmental agencies, a failure of Akamai's network infrastructure, our ability to protect our intellectual property rights and inventions from third party challenges, and other factors that are discussed in the Akamai's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.