Free for a Fee

A few months ago, the US Supreme Court said it would take up a controversial and divided case regarding software patents. Now, the high court has agreed to take up two more patent cases—both of which could potentially overturn current rules that many in the tech sector see as too lenient for patent owners.The first case involves a years-long battle between two competitors in the business of creating Content Delivery Networks, or CDNs: Akamai Technologies and Limelight Networks. CDNs are the Internet infrastructure that allows websites to quickly perform “load balancing” and quickly respond to high demand for their content.