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To: Return to Sender who wrote (6062)	10/10/2002 10:37:57 PM
From: The Ox	Respond to of 95378

Intergraph claims victory in patent suit against Intel Semiconductor Business News (10/10/02 07:36 p.m. EST) Silicon Strategies HUNTSVILLE, Ala.--In a major and stunning decision, a U.S. district court in Texas ruled on Thursday that Intel Corp.'s 64-bit processor lines infringe upon Intergraph Corp.'s RISC technology for defining key aspects of parallel instruction computing (PIC). This represents Intergraph's second legal victory over Intel in recent months, it was noted. Today's mediation also resulted in Intel and Intergraph agreeing to set liquidated damages for the PIC patent case. Under terms of the settlement, the Texas Court's finding of infringement obligates Intel to pay Intergraph $150 million in liquidated damages. Upon payment of $150 million, Intel then has three options: pay an additional $100 million to Intergraph and receive a license to the PIC patents; appeal the district court decision and, if they lose the appeal, pay Intergraph an additional $100 million; or try to design around the infringement. In his order, Judge T. John Ward ruled that Intergraph's patents are "valid and enforceable" and that Intel's 64-bit Itanium products "literally infringe" two claims of the `028 patent and seven claims of the `003 patent. Judge Ward also determined that Intergraph is entitled to an injunction on Intel's Itanium or Itanium 2 processors. "This ruling validates Intergraph's patents, and paves the way for Intergraph's Intellectual Property (IP) Division to actively pursue open licensing with others throughout the consumer electronics and computer industries," said Intergraph chairman and CEO Jim Taylor, in a statement. "We are pleased that the company's long-standing dispute with Intel has concluded with yet another significant return from the company's investment in innovation," he added. Intel insisted the case is not over, but it also expressed disappointment over the shocking news. “We are disappointed with the judge's ruling,” according to a spokesman for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company. “Clearly, we don't agree with the ruling,” the spokesman said. Intel said there will be a 10-day waiting period for the court to make a final ruling. If the court rules against Intel, the microprocessor giant will file an appeal, the spokesman told SBN. This represents the latest in a series of legal disputes between Intel and Intergraph, based in Huntsville. In November 1997, Intergraph sued Intel for infringing on its 32-bit Clipper patents, which define the architecture of a microprocessor's cache memory management. During court-ordered mediation talks in April 2002, Intergraph and Intel settled an earlier patent infringement case filed by Intergraph in 1997. In that settlement, Intel paid Intergraph $300 million and took a license to Intergraph's 32-bit Clipper technology patents (see April 15 story ). Then, last summer, Intergraph filed the suit against Intel, charging that Intel's 64-bit Itanium processor technology infringes upon Intergraph's RISC-based MPU patents. Today, Intergraph gained the upper hand in the case, although Intel insists the suit is far from over.