Texas Instruments has agreed to license Intergraph's
patents on parallel processing technology, ending the legal battle
between the two companies.
The dispute was related to three Intergraph patents regarding
its parallel instruction computing (PIC) technology. The company
claimed that Texas Instruments' TMS320C6000 digital signal
processors infringed upon its patents by using the PIC technology
in those products.
Texas Instruments' will license the technology through the
one-time payment of $18m as a royalty fee.
Intergraph is suing three PC companies - Hewlett-Packard, Dell
and Gateway - in a separate patent dispute which is scheduled to
begin next August. It claimed that those companies infringed on
cache memory management technology that it had patented.
It has also pursued patent infringement claims against Intel,
which has cost Intel $150m so far, as part of a monetary damages
agreement.
During the Intel trial, a judge said Intergraph's patents were
"valid and enforceable", and that Intel's Itanium 2 server
processor infringed upon those patents.
Intergraph used to manufacture its own line of technical
workstations and graphics technology which used an internally
developed processor called Clipper. The technology that was to
become part of the next-generation Clipper processor is involved in
the patent cases between Intergraph, Texas Instruments and
Intel.
Intergraph sold those businesses in 2000 after a licensing
dispute with Intel.
Tom Krazit writes for IDG News
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