Cable & Wireless Plc this week asked a San Francisco District Court to stop Akamai Technologies Inc selling its flagship EdgeSuite service on the basis that it may infringe a C&W patent on internet route selection.

C&W sued Akamai in August, saying EdgeSuite infringes its "host-to-host adaptive route protocol" US patent. Sockeye Networks Inc, 40%, owned by Akamai, was also named in the suit, though C&W has not yet asked for an injunction against the smaller firm.

The HHARP patent deals with a way to route around trouble spots on the internet by testing backbones before routing traffic. C&W says the methods are used in content delivery networks such as EdgeSuite, but Akamai denies it infringes.

The companies are tied up in several patent infringement suits currently, and C&W is currently facing an Akamai-filed contempt of court motion for not turning off its CDN, formerly known as Footprint, which was found to infringe an Akamai patent.

Preliminary injunctions that stop companies selling their products are rarely granted in patent suits, and both firms have a track record of having such requests denied. The HHARP case is being heard by a different judge to the other C&W-Akamai infringement cases, which are being tried in Boston.

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