Looks like CRUS and S3 are playing on the same team:
Cirrus Logic Sues ATI Technologies Over Video Graphics Patent
Bloomberg News
July 10, 1998, 3:55 p.m. PT
Cirrus Logic Sues ATI Technologies Over Video Graphics Patent
Fremont, California, July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Cirrus Logic
Inc. sued ATI Technologies Inc. over a video graphics patent that
it says the world's No. 2 supplier of graphics components is
infringing on in its flagship products.
Fremont, California-based Cirrus filed the suit this week in
San Francisco's U.S. District Court, seeking unspecified damages
and an injunction against the sale of the disputed products.
''It is one of our key patents,'' said Cirrus spokesman Tom
Rigoli. ''It is a very important patent.''
The technology covered in the 1995 patent allows users of
computer systems to manipulate displays of video and static
graphics simultaneously, according to the suit. Rigoli said
Toronto-based ATI's disputed Ragepro product line has more than
$100 million in U.S. sales.
ATI Director of Investor Relations Jo-Anne Chang said the
company would ''vigorously defend'' the case and that Cirrus is
losing market share in the area. ATI has 22 percent of the
relevant desktop market, she said.
''Cirrus is now exiting the graphics industry, so you would
have to question why they would do this sort of thing now,''
Chang said.
Rigoli said that Cirrus is now focusing on interested
products using some of the same technology, rather than its prior
stand-alone products, which made up less than 10 percent of its
revenue in the last quarter.
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