Intergraph, who will soon become known as a company that likes to start different legal disputes, announced that its Intellectual Property division has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, the Eastern District of Texas, charging Dell Computer Corporation, HP Company (including Compaq products), and Gateway, Inc., with patent infringement.

Specifically, Intergraph claims that products from the three computer vendors infringe U.S. Patent Numbers 4,899,275 and 4,933,835 and 5,091,846 owned by Intergraph. These computer system-level patents relate to cache memory management technology. Until 1993, the ‘275, ‘835, and ‘846 patented “Clipper” technology was embodied in the Company’s workstations, based on the Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II and Pentium III processors.

Intergraph has just completed litigation related to the Clipper patents. The Clipper microprocessor patent suit was filed against Intel in 1997 and settled in April 2002. The settlement agreement with Intel, however, did not include licenses for Intel’s customers – the OEMs who incorporated an Intel processor with non-Intel products in their computers. In fact, the agreement expressly excludes any license regarding the OEMs’ sale of infringing computer systems and specifically records Intergraph’s intention to seek payment for patent licenses from the OEMs.

In 1997, Intergraph put a number of computer companies on notice that the Company believed their products infringed the Clipper system patents, which covered computer systems, not simply the components that comprise such systems. Intergraph continued to offer to negotiate a license for the patents with the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) until 1999 when Intergraph temporarily suspended its enforcement and licensing program while it pursued its litigation against Intel. In 2001, Intergraph renewed its offer to the OEMs to negotiate a license to the Clipper patents.

In fact, Intergraph has very serious intentions to force, at least, the biggest OEMs and system integrators to license the “Clipper” technology and pay the fees to the Marshall, Texas-based company.

See also:

- Intel May Be Forced to Stop Selling the Itanium
- Intel’s Itanium Processor Infriges Intergraph’s Patents