To: Craig Stevenson who wrote (11599 ) 10/21/1997 8:58:00 AM From: Patrick Sharkey Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Craig S. and Craig C., while I believe that discussion of the Arxcel position merits further discussion, let's not get into speculation. While the engineering/price per port comparisons appear fairly clear, no one appears to know whether or not Arxcel infringes on an Ancor patent (or vice-versa, which appears unlikely given the timing of delivery of product). If Arxcel is infringing, then it will have to obtain a license from Ancor and pay $$$ for the privilege of doing so, which will further cut into their margins for a product which already appears to be not competitive in price (I recall that there was a great deal of discussion about whether or not Amati could claim infringement with respect to an ANSI-compliant ADSL product; ADI, which made chips for an ADSL company, claimed that it did not have to obtain a license, and another Amati competitor claimed that its attorneys had looked at the situation and given an oral non-infringement opinion -- in the end, I believe that the matter was resolved with ADI ended up licensing from Amati, and Amati was acquired by Westell).
