Intergraph Corp. has filed a lawsuit charging Dell Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Gateway Inc. with patent infringement, the company announced Monday.
Intergraph told the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas that the three computer vendors infringe on at least three patents related to its Clipper cache memory management technology, it said in a statement.
Intergraph won a suit against Intel Corp in October when a judge ruled that its Itanium chip infringed Intergraph's Clipper patents. The ruling was expected to cost Intel US$150 million in damages. An earlier patent infringement case in April saw Intel paying Intergraph $300 million and licensing Intergraph technology.
The settlement agreement with Intel did not include licenses for Intel's customers, however, and specifically set out Intergraph's intention to seek payment for patent licenses from manufacturers, Intergraph said.
The Intergraph technologies relating to the lawsuits announced Monday are covered by U.S. Patent Numbers 4,899,275; 4,933,835 and 5,091,846, the company said. They can be viewed through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site, at http://www.uspto.gov/