Intergraph wins round in suit against Intel

A U.S. district court yesterday granted Intergraph Corp. an injunction against Intel Corp. in a lawsuit that accuses the chip giant of patent infringement, anticompetitive behavior and violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Intergraph said in a statement yesterday.

Determining that Intergraph is likely to win its case based on the merits of its claims, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama ordered Intel to provide the workstation manufacturer with access to advanced product information, chip samples and production chips relating to certain Intel products, Intergraph said.

Responding to Intergraph's charges that Intel used access to certain non-disclosure agreements and contracts to force Intergraph to relinquish patent licenses, the court said in its ruling that "the deliberate termination of the parties' relationship by Intel, ... is unconscionable," according to an Intergraph statement.

Intel officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Intergraph's lawsuit against Intel, filed on Nov. 17, also accused the chip maker of withholding information in a way that forced Intergraph to delay the release of certain products. A few weeks later, on Dec. 3, Intergraph amended its suit to include a federal antitrust claim against Intel.

Meantime, Intel responded with its own lawsuit, which sought a declaratory judgment that the patents Intergraph claims to hold are invalid, and that Intel was within its rights not to share proprietary information.

The patents in question come from technology developed for Intergraph's Clipper microprocessor, which Intergraph used in its RISC/Unix workstations before the company moved over to the Intel/Windows NT platform, Intergraph said.

Intergraph sues Intel over anticompetitive acts
Network World, 11/18/98

Details on the suit
from Intergraph.