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Intel Sued for Patent Infringement

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the familiar-sounding-ideas dept.

mfh writes "All Computers Inc. has filed suit against Intel for infringing on US Patent (5,506,981). Apparently Intel utilized patent-conflicting circuitry to determine the frequency of the input signal to the microprocessor, including Pentium processors. All Computers is asking for the tidy sum of $500 million USD."

13 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Another Lawyer money maker by stecoop · · Score: 5, Informative

    Did anyone notice that the details are missing in the lawsuit? I read the patent and it I couldn't tell if they were seeking rights to the theory of relativity or dual processor technology. I suspect its speed step technology but who knows. Law cases are getting really thin now-a-days.

    1. Re:Another Lawyer money maker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think this is symptomatic of having every rich kid's parents pay for them to do law, and many of them not ending up in law... but business.

      So what you have is alot of "legally aware" a-holes who love to try and push every "business advantage".

      They are the other side of capitalism. On one side of capitalism you have inefficient state intervention. On the other you have vested interests who don't want to have to face dynamic markets, they want everything to be wrapped up, safe and secure, for them.

      It's funny that the same people outsource, and yet they are afraid to compete on price with other companies. They are the high priests of globalisation, and it's about time they were recognised as anti-capitalist. These people don't believe in the free markets, they are just on whatever bandwagon it takes to make a profit. The minute someone starts doing something more efficiently than they do, they have a huge cry and resort to the law.

      That isn't capitalism, that's just greed.

      I for one would like to see more economists speaking out against these people as anti-capitalist anti-innovation leeches. We all get to where we are in science because we stand on the shoulders to giants who contributed their work for free to the public domain. Now these leeches make minor alterations and claim they should have a monopoly on the one logical solution to a problem for scores of years. Fuck that.

      That's not innnovation and that's not capitalism. That's the logic of daddy's little little lawyer, who got their job through family connections, corruption through fraternities or a degree from one of the "elite" institutions which allows these smacktards to identify each other.

      There needs to be a capitalist revolution whereby all these people and their anti-capitalist practices are smashed. Because if you aren't a well meaning socialist and if you aren't a well meaning capitalist, I can only thing of one more catergory: criminal.

  2. A legal section on /. by herrison · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We need one. Please!

    --
    You know what I miss? Leeches.
  3. Overdrive by GigsVT · · Score: 5, Informative

    This looks like it covers something more like the old "DX2" overdrive chips and things, where you install a second chip to upgrade the first. Makes you wonder why they didn't try to sue years ago.

    That's just from my preliminary reading though.

    --
    I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  4. One day nothing will be able to be done by machine+of+god · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because someone will own a piece of every idea.

    And people will wonder why the US falls behind in tech.

  5. Holy extortion, batperson! by Willeh · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The way i see it, the basic principle of determining frequencies by using a step-up board is pretty common. I didn't more than skim the patent, but it seems to me this kind of stuff has been used for years in a similar sort of way in radio's and other tuning equipment.

    So either these guys are gonna be the SCO of the semi-conductor world, or their crack is pretty good.

    --
    Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
  6. Europe by sleepnmojo · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least this sort of thing can't happen in Europe. Oh wait....

  7. The American Dream (TM) by JohnCC · · Score: 5, Funny

    Step 1: Patent generic idea
    Step 2: Wait a few years for people to adopt it
    Step 3: ???
    Step 4: Profit!!

    I'm waiting to sue for my patent "eating food whilst surfing the internet". I'm gonna be rich beyond my wildest dreams!

  8. Legal Section on /. by jobsagoodun · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its called Groklaw!

  9. After a quick read by the+real+darkskye · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It looks like the patent is describing any method of running hardware components at speeds faster than the frequency line on the board.

    This vaugly could be anything including having a clock multiplier on the CPU (Look out AMD, Cyrix, Transmeta, VIA, HP, IBM, Apple, anyone else!) however as it was only filed in '93 I think intel can claim prior art with this, given the 80486 DX2/4 used frequency multipliers .. although I can't recall when they were released.

    That aside, its now friday afternoon and its time to clock watch to 5pm!

    --
    Music is everybody's possession.
    It's only publishers who think that people own it.
    Fuck Beta
    ~John Lenno
  10. Re:FUCK YOU AMERICA by DrMrLordX · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sorry, but this REALLY needs to be done. Moderators, please activate your social justice circuitry before modding this.

    IN SOVIET RUSSIA, America fucks YOU!

    Yakov Smirnov is a genius. I love this country! Thank you.

  11. Bell Labs by SillySnake · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had a professor tell me this story, and never bothered to go back through and check on the truth, but I assume it to be true :)
    He said that Bell labs actully had to wait several years for a patent on the idea of an Field Effect Transistor (FET) to expire before trying to create their own. However, it was while they were trying to create the FET that the BJT was mistakenly invented.
    Just through it was an interesting story about the effects that pattents have on society.. Can you imagine where the computer world might be if we'd gotten the transistor 5 years earlier or even more? It's an exciting thing to think about, and raises questions about patents.. Perhaps we could have cured cancer with that extra computing power.. Maybe we could have cured AIDs.. Or maybe our video games would be that much cooler ;-)

  12. Not Even Close!! by WildThing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IANAL but..

    From reading the patent, It appears to Me that this patent was on a method of installing CPU upgrades to a computer. For example those cards that took a 386 to a 486 or allowed you to exchange the CPU for a faster one and increase the clock speed. These types of cards are about useless anymore! Besides, this patent was applied for in 1993 - I am VERY sure there is prior art. I can remember these types of upgrades as early as 1986. Hell, NEC was offering upgrades as early as 1981, albeit not this type, but it DID upgrade the CPU and increase the clock speed. It was that old V20 CPU and a clock crystal to upgrade your 8088 PC and increase the clock from 4.77mhz to 8mhz. (Hmm.... I* wonder who else on here actually used one of those besides Me?)

    It'll be interesting to see how this playes out, but seems to me that this is a poor attempt by a company that has no market anymore to get a few quick bucks. --- Hey, I wonder if any SCO people are thier relatives ?!?