InterGraph sues Intel - Again.
07/31/2001 7:10:13 AM MDT Albuquerque, Nm
By Dustin D. Brand; Owner AMO
Recently filed lawsuit claims parallel processing patent infringement.
The Graphics Chip Designer Intergraph filed a lawsuit against Intel Monday, claiming that Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip architecture violates two Intergraph patents, Intergraph said in a statement issued late in the day.
The InterGraph patents relate to parallel instruction computing (PIC), which helps speed up the operation of processors. Intergraph said Intel's EPIC (explicitly parallel instruction computing) architecture violates patents that Intergraph holds on PIC. Intergraph developed PIC in 1992 for its C5 Clipper graphics chip, and filed for patents in 1993, the company said in a statement.
The two InterGraph patents cover: -- the techniques used to convey compiler-recognized parallelism to the hardware; -- a novel approach to routing instructions to any of the processing units.
The two patents are key to the performance of Itanium chips, Intergraph said in the statement. InterGraph and Intel have been in and out of courts in the last 4 years.
As part of another lawsuit brought by InterGraph against Intel in 1997, InterGraph claimed antitrust practices, and just last month the antitrust portion was dismissed.
Intel and InterGraph have worked together however between 1993 and 1996 on advanced chip designs. There is still the pending patent infringement suit filed in 1997.
This most recent lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court, the Eastern District of Texas, and Intergraph said it is completely seperate from the 1997 suit in its statement.
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