Friday, February 8th 2008
Intel Sued for Core 2 Duo Patent Infringement
A lawsuit filed today by the University of Wisconsin claims that the processor infringes on patented technology developed by one of its professors, back in 1998. Gurindar Sohi, Computer Science department chair, presented some of his developments relating to instruction level parallelism to Intel and offered to license them, but got nowhere, yet the same tech is in the Core 2 Duo, according to the lawsuit. Intel says its been talking to the Badgers for over a year now, and that it has not evaluated the complaint, which it might want to do in short order, since the University of Wisconsin is asking for the court to halt shipments of the Core 2 Duo in addition to monetary damages and legal fees.
Source:
WARF
45 Comments on Intel Sued for Core 2 Duo Patent Infringement
This is definitely wild, but I don't forsee a judge in his right mind stopping technological progress like that. If it doesn't settle out of court (which is most likely will), then the judge will most likely only impose a monetary settlement to the professor & university.
If it is a legit complaint, then in all fairness, shame on intel for shafting the man responsible for one of the best procs EVER. If anything, they should fund his continuing research and development! Oh, and sign a no-compete so he can't sell to AMD. It's to their advantage to continue their lead.
But being Intel is generally a decently nice company, they will probably hand some cash over, smile, shake a few hands and say "sorry for the overlook" or something to that sort.