VIA Technologies, together with its wholly-owned subsidiary Centaur Technology, announced that is has filed suit against Intel Corporation for patent infringement by the Intel Pentium 4 microprocessor family.
The suit, filed in the Federal District Court for the Western Division of Texas (Austin Division), the home of Centaur`s headquarters, alleges that Intel Pentium 4 microprocessors infringe, contribute to the infringement of, or induce others to infringe VIA and Centaur`s US Patent Number 6 253 311 (the `311 Patent).
This patent, which is jointly owned by VIA and Centaur, deals with the different formats in which numeric data may be stored in a microprocessor.
VIA and Centaur seek a ruling from the court that would enjoin the sale of Intel Pentium 4 microprocessors, as well as a request for monetary damages for both VIA and Centaur.
"VIA is not only a leading provider of core logic chipsets worldwide, but also is becoming an important supplier of PC microprocessors, thanks to the hard work of our CPU designers in Texas," said Richard Brown, director of marketing for VIA Technologies. "Filing this lawsuit is the first step in protecting our intellectual property rights."
VIA purchased the Austin-based Centaur from Integrated Device Technology, Inc of Santa Clara, California in 1999. Recent microprocessor products produced by Centaur include the VIA C3, which has the world`s smallest x86 processor die size, making it especially useful for portable, low power computing applications.
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VIA Technologies, Inc is a leading innovator and developer of PC core logic chipsets, microprocessors, and multimedia and communications chips.
VIA delivers value to the PC industry by designing, marketing, and selling high-performance VIA Apollo core logic chipsets for the full range of PC platforms, as well as cost-effective VIA C3 processors for Value PCs and Internet Appliances.
Its customers include the world`s top OEMs, mainboard manufacturers, and system integrators. VIA is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, at the centre of the Greater China high-tech manufacturing engine, and has branch offices in the US, China and Europe. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE2388), and achieved annual revenues of nearly US$1 billion in 2000. Additional information can be found at www.via.com.tw
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