The jury hearing the patent infringement case brought by Akamai Technologies against its rival LimeLight Networks has awarded Akamai $45.5 million in damages.

Akamai had accused LimeLight of violating at least two of its patents. A District Court judge ruled that LimeLight had violated one of them. LimeLight plans to appeal that decision.

The patent in question is 6,108,703, which describes a process for serving Web-based content that varies only slightly in detail from other processes that accomplish the same thing.

Akamai said it will ask the court to issue a permanent injunction prohibiting Limelight from continuing to sell infringing services after the jury rejected Limelight's defense that the Akamai patent was invalid.

Both companies deliver video and other content over the Internet. Akamai’s services are used by Yahoo, MySpace, and the Pentagon, among others, while LimeLight’s customers include Microsoft and Facebook.

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