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- From: rshwake@irscscm.UUCP (Ray Shwake)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
- Subject: Slime lives: Intel's latest tactic against clones
- Message-ID: <1992Nov7.170852.10035@irscscm.UUCP>
- Date: 7 Nov 92 17:08:52 GMT
- References: <1992Nov4.131245.1113@yvax.byu.edu>
- Reply-To: shwake@rsxtech.UUCP (Ray Shwake)
- Distribution: na
- Organization: R|S|X Technical Services, Washington, DC
- Lines: 24
-
- Excerpted from InfoWorld's _At_Deadline_ column (November 12, 1992):
-
- In a move that could put more upward pressure on systems price
- increases, Intel Corp. is asserting its right to collect royalties of
- between $15 and $25 for every system that uses an x86 clone processor.
- Cyrix Corp. last week asked a U.S. District Court, in Dallas, to put
- a stop to the practice.
-
- Intel acknowledged that it has approached "a half dozen companies",
- explaining that it has a system-level patent that covers memory
- management in an x86 environment. Intel denied that the attempt to
- get royalties on that patent was an effort to keep manufacturers
- from using non-Intel processors, but it admitted that only those
- using clone chips would be affected. The proposed royalty rates
- would be approximately 20 percent of the cost of the clone processor
- and would be subject to change as pricing on the processors
- fluctuated, a company representative said.
-
- Cyrix, which successfully argued in federal court this summer that
- it had a license from Intel to sell x86-compatible processors, asked
- a federal judge to issue a summary motion preventing Intel from
- seeking royalties from manufacturers using the clone chips. Cyrix
- officials described Intel's efforts to enforce a system-level patent
- as a way of keeping major manufacturers from using Cyrix's processors.
-