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Chip Maker Gets $35 Million Judgment
Neoflexycurrent writes "The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a $35 million judgment against Clear Logic for violation of the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. The court concluded that the jury properly rejected Clear Logic's argument that it had legitimately reverse engineered Plaintiff Altera Corporation's mask work design to create cheaper application-specific integrated circuits."
Altera makes chips that can be programmed to do different things (FPGAs).
Clear Logic made "application specific integrated circuits" - ie they only do one specific thing that the customer needs, but are cheaper than programmable chips if you buy enough.
The issue here is that Clear Logic's mechanism for receiving the design from the customer and making it into a chip is to use the programming data (bitstream) for an Altera chip. Then the data is used together with an image (mask) copied from an Altera chip to create the ASIC.
The ruling is that Clear Logic's use of the mask in building the ASIC is not legitimate reverse engineering, but illegal re-use of Altera's IP.
FYI: Clear Logic seems to have been dead since 2003.
editorial: only $35M?
Maybe you'd like another article about global warming or the Iraq war?
does anyone else find the phrase "the jury properly rejected Clear Logic's argument" to be ironic?
The only post worse than one from a Karma whore is one that calls for somebody to be modded down because you don't like their politics.
Maybe the guy really is a myopic jackass for getting his panties in a twist over a very obscure and complex ruling from a court he doesn't like... maybe not. I dunno. Reverse engineering laws are complex, and I admit that, not being an IP lawyer, I barely grasp them.
How about arguing against his point rather than making a personal attack and calling for him to be silenced (by begging mods to crank his post down to -1 where almost nobody will see it)?
Why do you hate Free Speech?
Seriously. Why? There's no room for debate on the point that you do, as you are trying to censor rather than debate, so the only question is, why do you hate Free Speech?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Q: Where do you go to sue somebody for violating a semiconductor law?
A: A Circuit Court!!!
Bad, Bad!!!
NO !!!!
I worked for Clear Logic from its begining to its end (we ran out of money paying lawyers). We never used any Altera masks ever. We spent a significant amount of time reverse engineering the masks so we would be legal. I believe the judge never understood this.