The situation with Intel vs. VIA conflict keeps getting more and more tense. Today there appeared some new items in an endless chain of mutual accusations expressed by both companies. If you have forgotten, we would like to remind you that the whole story between Intel and VIA started because of the new DDR solution for Pentium 4 launched by VIA, which the company was going to sell at relatively low prices and without Intel’s license.
Intel couldn’t remain calm when things like that happened and sued VIA for Pentium 4 patent infringement. VIA responded with something like "Intel simply loves lawsuits" and... struck back with a lawsuit against Intel accusing it of VIA C3 patent infringement with their new Pentium 4 CPU. This move has definitely taken Intel’s calmness away. And now there comes another action: Intel sues VIA in three different countries: Germany, Great Britain and Hong Kong. The lawsuits now deal with Intel’s patents violated by two VIA products: VIA P4X266 and C3. Moreover, this time even VIA partners got involved. In Germany Intel tries to beat VIA’s German representation office, in Great Britain the lawsuits have to do with Elitegroup Computer Systems and Realtime Distribution, and in Hong Kong Trend Electronics seems to have fallen in Intel’s temper.
Well, now we are waiting for VIA’s reaction again. Most likely the company will sue Intel another time. Anyway, it looks as if a knife-fight is coming :-)
Additional info on new Intel’s suits is available here.