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March 5, 2007
Strained Silicon
Amberwave
asserted
5,158,907 against Intel in July 2005 in
the Eastern District of Texas, later adding
7,074,655. Intel rebutted, and various lawsuits arose in a running battle.
Intel continually cried wolf with non-infringement, while Amberwave was a wolf
snarling willful infringement. Now the posturing is history. Amberwave scored a
settlement from hard-nosed Intel, who laid down like a lamb, getting a 10-year
license to Amberwave's patent portfolio in return for undisclosed big green.
Amberwave's patents went to making strained silicon, allegedly used in Intel's 90nm Pentium CPUs. Strained silicon enhances the mobility of charged carriers in semiconductors by altering the silicon lattice structure.
Intel counterclaimed to Amberwave's initial Texas suit in Delaware, seeking declaratory relief. Amberwave shot back that Intel refused to negotiate a "commercially reasonable" license, and filed another suit with the freshly minted '655 patent. Realizing that it wasn't holding a winning hand, Intel cut its losses.
Posted by Patent Hawk at March 5, 2007 7:34 PM | Litigation