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Technology Stocks : Creative Labs (CREAF) A New Hope - -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hitch who wrote (5)	3/22/1998 3:29:00 PM
From: Hitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 76

Creative Files Lawsuits For Audio Technology (03/20/98; 1:57 p.m. EST) By Joseph F. Kovar, Computer Reseller News In a case that could have implications for PC original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and assemblers who integrate sound cards into their systems, Creative Technology has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against a sound board vendor and a sound chip maker. The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, was brought by Creative and its U.S. subsidiary, E-mu Systems. The company is suing Diamond Multimedia Systems and ESS Technology. Diamond, in San Jose, Calif., manufacturers graphics, video, and sound add-on cards. Fremont, Calif.-based ESS makes chips for sound cards. Creative's lawsuit relates to peripheral component interconnect (PCI) audio technology embodied in Diamond's Sonic Impact family of sound cards and ESS' Maestro-2 audio chip. The lawsuit was filed just days prior to Diamond's March 17 rollout of its Sonic Impact S70 sound card, which incorporates technology covered in the lawsuit. The lawsuit is the second related to Creative's PCI audio technology. In January, Creative filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Fremont-based Aureal Semiconductor, previously known as Media Vision Technology. Both lawsuits have to do with PCI audio technology, but the suits are related to two different patents owned by Creative. The common thread, according to John Danforth, senior legal counsel for the Creative group, is that both are related to the use of cache memory on audio subsystems, and the use of interpellation on audio subsystems to interpolate or manipulate the sound data. Danforth said he was unsure if Creative was planning to sue PC OEMs who use sound cards built around the ESS or Aureal chips in question. "We haven't decided whether or not to go up the food chain," he said. Both Diamond and ESS declined to comment.