Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/23/amd_faces_patent_infringement_claim/
AMD has been accused of patent infringement for the second time in less than a month. Having found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from intellectual property holder Opti (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/17/opti_sues_amd/) earlier this month, AMD was this week threatened by MicroUnity Systems Engineering.
MicroUnity claims a whole heap of AMD CPUs, new and old, which support 3DNow! and provide compatibilty with Intel's SSE technology infringe upon a dozen of its patents. The lawsuit filed with the US District Court for Eastern Texas even lists AMD processors that have yet to come to market.
The plaintiff said it wants a jury trial, and it's asking for damages should the case go its way.
MicroUnity sued Intel (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/29/intel_dell_sued_over_sse/) on much the same grounds back in March 2004. Then, it claimed seven of its patents had been violated by CPUs that support HyperThreading and the first two versions of SSE.
In the summer of 2005, Intel settled with MicroUnity by paying it $300m. ®
Intel next target as Opti sues Apple over CPUs? (19 January 2007)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/01/19/opti_sues_apple/
Nintendo sued over alleged Wii Remote patent violation (11 December 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/12/11/nintendo_sued_over_wii_remote/
AMD debuts 65nm dual-core processors (5 December 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/12/05/amd_ships_65nm_cpus/
AMD demos four-core Opteron (1 December 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/12/01/amd_opteron_quad-core_demo/
Supremes skeptical toward trivial patents (29 November 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/29/supremes_make_sense_of_patents/
Businesses reject quicker, weaker patents (28 November 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/28/patents_report/
Intel samples 45nm 'Penryn' (28 November 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/28/intel_samples_penryn/
AMD's chipset naming scheme: details emerge (17 November 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/17/amd_chipset_naming_scheme/
AMD accused of patent violation (17 November 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/17/opti_sues_amd/
AMD 2007 roadmap plots course to the stars? (15 November 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/15/amd_2007_desktop_roadmap/
AMD ships Stream chip and coding kit (14 November 2006)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/14/amd_ships_ctm_stream/
Legal charge mars Intel's sparkling Q3 (18 October 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/intel_q3_earnings/
Intel, Dell sued over SSE, HyperThreading (29 March 2004)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/29/intel_dell_sued_over_sse/