We propose a novel shared sub-path protection (SSPP) algorithm to protect the double-link failures in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) mesh networks. SSPP segments the primary path into several equal-length sub-paths and searches two link-disjoint backup paths for each sub-path. When computing the paths, SSPP considers the load balance and the resource sharing degree, so that the blocking ratio can be effectively reduced. The simulation results show that SSPP not only can completely protect the double-link failures but also can make the tradeoffs between the resource utilization ratio (or blocking ratio) and the protection-switching time. We propose a novel shared sub-path protection (SSPP) algorithm to protect the double-link failures in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) mesh networks. SSPP segments the primary path into several equal-length sub-paths and searches two link-disjoint backup paths for each sub-path. When computing the paths, SSPP considers the load balance and the resource sharing degree, so that the blocking ratio can be reduced. The simulation results show that SSPP not only completely protected the double-link failures but also can make the tradeoffs between the resource utilization ratio (or blocking ratio) and the protection-switching time