Intel zieht Klage gegen VIA zurück

Pressemitteilung: VIA Announces Total Victory in Lawsuit with Intel Relating to K7 Chipset Products Intel Dismisses Last Remaining Claim Taipei, Taiwan, 14 December 2001, - VIA Technologies, Inc., a leading innovator and developer of core logic chipsets, microprocessors, and multimedia and communications chips, today announced that it has prevailed fully in the lawsuit filed by Intel Corporation in July 2000 in which Intel alleged that VIA's AMD K7-compatible chipsets infringed four Intel patents. In July 2001, Intel dismissed all claims relating to one of the four patents asserted against VIA's K7 chipsets. Intel's allegations relating to the three remaining patents had been scheduled for trial in the Northern District of California in January 2002. However, as has been reported previously, on November 20, 2001, the U.S. District Court granted summary judgment in VIA's favor with respect to one of those patents on the grounds that VIA was licensed to the patent under the Accelerated Graphics Port 2.0 license agreement that Intel made available to the industry and which VIA had executed. On December 4, 2001, the Court granted summary judgment in VIA’s favor with respect to another of the patents on the grounds that Intel had not proven that VIA infringed the patent. The Court was scheduled to hear VIA’s motion for summary judgment of invalidity regarding the last remaining patent on December 13, 2001. However, on December 11, 2001, Intel dismissed its claims relating to that patent. The dismissal terminates all litigation between VIA and Intel relating to VIA’s K7 chipsets. While VIA has dismissed its counterclaims against Intel, no payments of any kind have been made to Intel in connection with Intel’s dismissal of its remaining claim. VIA will not pay a royalty, and its K7 chipset products are no longer subject to a possible injunction arising from this litigation. “We could not be more delighted with this result,” commented Wen-Chi Chen, CEO and President of VIA Technologies, Inc. “We believed from the outset that Intel’s claims against our K7 chipsets were driven by marketing concerns rather than legal issues, and the Court’s orders granting summary judgment for VIA and Intel’s dismissal of its last claim validate this belief. Our engineering and legal teams did a great job so that we remain free to continue our thriving K7 chipset business.” Lawsuits between the parties regarding VIA’s Pentium® 4-compatible chipsets remain pending, as does VIA’s lawsuit in Texas alleging that Intel’s Pentium® 4 microprocessor infringes a patent owned by VIA and its Centaur subsidiary. Said Mr. Chen, “Our hope is that our differences with Intel regarding the Pentium® 4 can be resolved short of protracted litigation like the case we just won. Competition should be in the marketplace, not in the courtroom.”