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To: wanna_bmw who wrote (54330)	9/10/2001 1:10:53 PM
From: kash johal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

wanna_bmw, re:"If that were the case, what would stop company X from buying company Y in order to shut down company Z? If Y had some patent cross licensing with Z, and X bought Y, couldn't X cancel the licensing for Z, in order to maliciously hurt them? Could that be legal? I'm not saying that's the case with VIA, but if the patents they acquired were under arguable circumstances, then the courts couldn't grant VIA a stop-sell on Intel products. Today's microprocessors are complicated enough to contain technology from thousands of sources. Some of the things that people are suggesting would put the industry in chaos. What court in their right minds would stifle an economic leader like Intel without some very concrete evidence that patents were falsely misused? Simply gaining IP from an acquisition would depend on what IP it is, how it was acquired, and how much it pertains to the design. Since Intel actually researched their Pentium 4 bus technology in-house, I'm sure that will help their case." I think you are completely wrong on a bunch of items: 1. Patents and IP can are acquired all the time. 2. A company may use its patents to exclude others: Case is Polaroid etc. Rambus more recently. Even though the patents may have problems the loss for rambus has been on merits of patents not their rights to enforce them. 3. If a company has a pre-existing patent x-license then that would cover any new patents - wether acquired or inhouse developed. Recently there was a case of Intel trying to purchase IP using a third party. And the judge was not happy. I dont recall the case. finally, what intel is doing is pretty dumb. They are limiting a company from developing a product which will enhance sales of intel products. regards, Kash

To: wanna_bmw who wrote (54330)	9/10/2001 2:32:56 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 275872

"If that were the case, what would stop company X from buying company Y in order to shut down company Z? " This has happened more than once. Consider, what is likely going on here is that Intel is claiming that the cross-license agreement that Intel had with S3 did not transfer to VIA. If that is the case, then the IP that S3 had cross-licensed to Intel is not covered any more either. Therefore, Intel is in violation, just as VIA is, if you use Intel's logic. Basically, Intel is being stupid.