Intergraph sues HP, Dell and Gateway over cache technology

By Steve Malone

Posted on 20 Dec 2002 at 11:20

Solution provider Intergraph has launched a lawsuit against three of the world's biggest PC vendors, claiming infringement of patented 'Clipper' cacheing technology. The move follows a similar successful claim against Intel which was settled on the 10th of October.

In that case, the court ruled that Intel's Itanium-based products infringed Intergraph's patented technology for defining key aspects of parallel instruction computing. In that case Intel had to pay Intergraph $150m with the option to pay another $150m to obtain a legal licence.

The settlement agreement with Intel, however, did not include licenses for Intel's customers - the OEMs who incorporated an Intel processor with non-Intel chipsets in their computers, hence, the suit against HP, Dell and Gateway. The latest Intergraph lawsuit alleges that the patents relate to cache memory management technology.

At the time, the Integraph Chairman Jim Taylor said, 'This ruling validates Intergraph's patents, and paves the way ... to actively pursue open licensing with others throughout the consumer electronics and computer industries' so the three computer vendors can't say they weren't warned.