Intel Corp. and Transmeta Corp. have
eventually settled down a patent infringement lawsuit over chip design, as
Intel has just agreed to pay Transmeta no less than $250 million for ending the
patent litigation.
Intel Corp. has agreed to pay
Transmeta Corp. $150 million initially and then, in the next five years, it
will pay $20 million each year. Intel will this way be granted the right to
license Transmeta patents for use in its future devices.
This agreement will eventually
end the pending patent litigation between the two companies and will as well
release all the claims between them. The deal has however come only after
Transmeta Corp., which is based in Santa Clara, California, has sued Intel Corp. in the United States’
District Court for the District of Delaware about one year ago. Transmeta has
claimed at the time that some Intel processors have violated 10 of the company’s
patents covering chip design and power-efficiency techniques. Nine of these
patents cover basic functions such as scheduling and addressing instruction on
the microprocessors, while the tenth could be related to the company’s LongRun
technology, which is used to adjust a chip’s voltage based on its workload.
Next, it has been Intel Corp.’s
time to sue Trasnmeta in court. This has happened in January 2007, when Intel
has countersued Transmeta for infringing seven of its patents. Intel has also
alleged that Transmeta has withheld mischaracterized info about other of its
patents and technologies from its patent applications.
However, it seems now that
everything is just history. Intel has also got in a binding agreement not to
sue Transmeta for the development and licensing of its LongRun technology to
third parties.
Transmeta was founded in 1995 and
represents a company that has tried to build itself as Intel’s rival. Its
Crusoe microprocessors, however, haven’t been welcomed by the users and
Transmeta has changed its business model into licensing its technology. But,
this settlement with Intel has made Transmeta’s stock to rise 253.11 percent to
$14.76 on Wednesday on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
|
