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Intel, Intergraph Settle In Hyperthreading Suit
Sir Pallas writes "Intel settled a patent infringement suit over SSE and Hyperthreading for $225mil with Intergraph. Furthermore, Dell, also named in the suit, claims that their indemnity agreement with Intel applies in this case and requires Intel to take any bullets headed Dell's way." Update: 03/31 17:49 GMT by T : philthedrill writes "The Intel/Intergraph article title is incorrect. Technically," (according to this story at out-law.com), "Intel/Dell and Intergraph settled a longstanding suit which dealt with Itanium (not SSE/Hyperthreading). Another company, MicroUnity, is now suing Intel and Dell over SSE and Hyperthreading."
"requires Intel to take any bullets headed Dell's way."
Dude, yer getting a shotgun shell!
Geez, it seems that corporations are all determined to play the game of "last man standing" with intellectual property these days. I think I'll give up on technology development and just go to law school.
Intel seems to have a history of ripping Intergraph off, and getting successfully sued for it. Intergraph has a page on their website dedicated to their suits against Intel. You can see that page at http://www.intergraph.com/intel/
This has been of particular interest in my state (Alabama), because it's a point of pride; Intergraph is located in Huntsville (near the space and rocket center), and is a relatively small company compared to Intel. One wonders if Intel simply figured "What the hell, we'll just take their stuff, patents be damned. What's that little hick company gonna do about it? We're INTEL, and they're, well, hicks". That's the thinking around here, anyway.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Integraph suit deals with Itanium stuff, as is stated here. The SSE/Hyperthreading suit is another company (MicroUnity) and another suit (same article).
Now, from what I understand, MicroUnity's MediaProcessor is a fine-grained multithreaded processor. There's limited information here and here, which may be the processor with the alleged patents that have been infringed upon. But what about University of Washington's SMT group? They put out their first paper in 1995. The Alpha EV8 (21464), before it got canned, was supposed to have SMT (and the Alpha group went from Digital to Compaq and then to Intel). I'm speculating that Intel got Hyperthreading from Alpha who got it from Washington. DEC/Compaq worked with Washington's SMT group, as Luiz Barroso is listed on the Washington SMT page (interestingly, he works for Google now. His Google article is quite interesting).
Intergraph claims that after several years of mutually beneficial work, in 1996 Intel began making unreasonable demands for royalty-free rights to Intergraph patents already being used in Intel microprocessors. When Intergraph refused, Intel abused its monopoly power by engaging in a series of illegal coercive actions intended to force Intergraph to give Intel access to the patents.
With no other source of suitable high-end processors available and with its hardware business under serious threat because of Intel's actions, Intergraph sought court protection by filing a lawsuit on November 17, 1997. The lawsuit asserts claims against Intel in three areas: illegal coercive behavior, patent infringement, and antitrust violations.
I know this isn't the politically correct point to make on
In the early to mid-nineties, Intel was having problems with their next generation CPU architecture, so they called in the guys from Intergraph for some help. Intel then proceeded to steal almost every piece of intellectual property that Intergraph possessed, stuck a knife squarely in Intergraph's back, and walked right out the door.
Fast forward to the late-nineties: IBM was having problems with their next generation UNIX-ish operating system, so they called in the guys from SCO for some help. Their joint venture was called "Project Monterey," and was a make-or-break gamble for a tiny company like SCO, i.e. SCO staked their future on the product that would emerge from the colloboration. IBM then appears [yes, this will have to be determined in a court of law] to have stolen almost every piece of intellectual property that SCO possessed, stuck a knife squarely in SCO's back, and walked right out the door.
There was a time when the /. types who claim to care about "the little guy" would have been appalled at IBM's behavior, but I guess too many people around here have drunk the Richard Stallman/Karl Marx koolaid to give a damn about things like the foundation of a republic under the rule of law.
PS: Back in the day, Intergraph had some awesome technology, but it almost seems as though they were too far ahead of their time to succeed in yesteryear's marketplace. If you enjoy surfing eBay for old hardware, you'll find things like Intergraph Quad-CPU Pentium servers [that's Pentium, NOT Pentium Pro, although they also made Quad-CPU Pentium Pros, as well], huge Intergraph ADC [analog to digital conversion] drafting tabletops for architects & designers, old Intergraph video acceleration cards that are, to this day, competitive with ATI/nVidia/Matrox, etc.
As a result, I found a guy about 25 miles from me who makes a living servicing old Intergraph rigs - he has a small warehouse filled with massive Intergraph 27"+ monitors that must weigh about a ton each. I really wanted [and still want] to get some, but they draw so much amperage that they practically need their own line to the circuit breaker box. [If you're interested, his eBay store is here. No affiliation.]
One likely reason for IBM canning Monterey was that IBM decided to proliferate POWER4, rather than go with Itanium in the medium range, and reserve POWER for the very highest ends of the market. The irony of all this is that now IBM are pushing Linux, and canning their own UNIX anyway.
Yes, it is ironic that IBM decided to ditch Itanium. And it's also ironic that AMD's CISC-ish 64-bit architecture is about to blow Intel's EPIC-ish 64-bit architecture right out of the water.
But for SCO, these aren't ironies; they're tragedies*. SCO staked their very existence on the IBM/Monterey/Merced/Itanium product, and IBM raped them.
IBM laughs all the way to the bank; SCO limps into bankruptcy court.
*Time will tell whether EPIC proves to be a tragedy for Intel; early indications are that it just might.
You seem to be implying that IBM took the work done on Project Monterey and contributed it to linux or to another unix.
No, I am implying that IBM entered into a partnership with SCO to produce an operating system and then stuck a knife in SCO's back just as the operating system was being readied for shipment. Project Monterey was peanuts to a company like IBM, but it was everything to SCO.
Frankly either you are very confused, have a grudge, or both.
Nope, just trying to point out that politically correct [in this case, IBM] does not always imply innocent of wrongdoing.