The battle between Speedera
Agents removed a computer from Day’s office as well as documents, the
Networks and Akamai Technologies
has intensified as the content delivery rivals traded
lawsuits and the FBI reportedly raided Speedera’s Santa Clara, Calif.,
headquarters.
Speedera announced Wednesday that it filed claim this week against Akamai in the
U.S. District Court in San Jose, California for unfair competition, false
advertising, trade libel and intentional interference with prospective
business advantage.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages as well as
injunctive relief against Akamai for making false statements about
Speedera’s financial condition and false statements about the performance of
Speedera’s content delivery services.
“Over the past several months we have received numerous reports from
customers, prospects and others that Akamai was making false statements
about our financial condition and the performance of our services in an
apparent attempt to influence our investors and our customers,” said Ajit
Gupta, President and Chief Executive Officer of Speedera.
The lawsuit comes one day after Akamai filed an application in California
Superior Court to immediately enjoin Speedera Networks, Inc. from further
access to, and use of, Akamai trade secrets that co-founder and CTO Richard
Day has allegedly stolen from a protected database maintained by Keynote
Systems, Inc., a third party provider of website testing services.
The suit seeks an injunction to prevent further access to Akamai’s data
hosted on the database, an order to prevent destruction of documents, and an
order restraining Speedera from contacting or offering services to any
prospects identified in the data.
“We’re appalled that by stealing our data, as our suit alleges, Speedera
tried to create a business, not by making an investment in its own company,
but by misappropriating the hard work and significant investment Akamai has
made,” said Paul Sagan, president of Akamai.
Speedera’s president and CEO, Ajit Gupta stated that Speedera is a licensed
user of Keynote Systems and that whatever information Speedera allegedly
obtained from Keynote is not protected or confidential information.
A hearing on Akamai’s application for a temporary restraining order is
scheduled for today in San Francisco Superior Court.
The New York Times reported today that FBI agents searched Speedera’s
offices on Monday, in a raid that was likely related to the Akamai’s most
recent legal action.
newspapaper said. A Speedera spokesman denied the allegations.
This is not the first time the two companies have been sitting across from
each other in a courtroom. Akamai filed a lawsuit in Boston in February
claiming that that Speedera’s CDN services infringe on Akamai patents, and
that Speedera’s “Universal Delivery Network” infringes on an MIT-owned
patent exclusively licensed to Akamai and used by its “FreeFlow” network.
That case is still pending.
Colin Haley, managing editor of boston.internet.com, contributed to this report.
Akamai, Speedera Gear Up for Legal Battle
