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Technology Stocks : IDTI - an IC Play on Growth Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gordon Quickstad who wrote (7044)	2/28/1998 1:07:00 PM
From: Charlie Tuna	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11555

Good point about intel not giving idt validation via a lawsuit. However if things keep going the way they have been idt may end up being a victim of their own success.If the slot 1 keeps dragging and socket 7 hangs in there at 100mhz,agp etc and idt's C6+ is good then intel will need to sue or get some major concessions.... With all due respect to Mr.Henry and the Centaur development team if they can develop a fast cheap x86 so can others and if these other clones can handle all existing apps except for multi processor type environments then intel will have to set policy/precedent with idt to get ready to handle the coming x86 clone crowd....I mean what Mr.Henry did was prove that by returning to a simple easy to build arch. you can do very well if you tune it to the mfu instructions now what is there to prevent others from developing x86 versions like the C6.Just look what happened to the asp of sram after it became cheap and easy to build. charlie who sold idt too soon tuna ps...if it drops back to where i sold it i might get back in. but day trading has been good to me and the asian flu maybe getting ready for a big return....vlsi kind of got the ball rolling on friday and it would be nice to be sitting on the sidelines come another drop like we had in oct.

To: Gordon Quickstad who wrote (7044)	2/28/1998 1:29:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 11555

Both AMD and Cyrix have the ability to clone slot 1 if they decide to do so. AMD, IBM (with whom Cyrix/NSM have a fab agreement) and NSM have cross-licenses with Intel that they have said would allow them to do so. NSM recently renegotiated an extended agreement with Intel. So far neither company has announced plans to clone the design. Intel won't give them the manufacturing design particulars but that should not be a major obstacle. Intel holds a large patent portfolio that includes some patents that they believe are necessary to any Pentium X86 clone design. few would argue that they posess an extensive patent portfolio. The degree of protection these patents gives them has not been fully tested in the courts. Intel sued AMD because they said that the patent cross-license they had granted them several years ago did not extend to newer technology and without those patents AMD could not produce X86 parts. The courts ruled that Intel had carried out the agreement in bad faith and denied AMD the ability to complete their part of the technology exchange. It never got into minute details of the patents as the primary determinant in the decision. Cyorx was sued for patent infringement on the grounds that they had viloated certain basic patent claims. Cyrix argued both that they had not violated the patents or that Intel's claims were invalid and as a second primary "theory" of the case that they had the right to have the parts manufactured by any company that had a broad cross-license agreement in place. I think this theory is called the "wash rule". Precedent had already been established that a company that holds a license can manufacture parts that contained patented technology even though the design of the parts originated with another company. TI and SGS were parties to the litigation along with Cyrix. The courts ruled in Cyrix' favor and Intel agreed to drop the suit. So IBM was able to produce Cyrix parts without threat from Intel even though Cyrix did not hold a patent license. Maybe IDTI has something already worked out with Intel or is sufficiently down the path in negotiations to not worry about it. There is some language in the recent 10Qs about negotiations on broad patent licenses with an unnamed party. I'd like to understand this better because it could be either a plus or minus factor for long-term prospects. I agree that Intel is most likely in a much more friendly stance toward competitors with Justice looking over their shoulders.