Judge says Intel's Itanium chip infringes patents

U.S. DISTRICT court on Thursday ruled that technology used by Intel in its 64-bit Itanium processors infringes on technology patents held by Intergraph, a ruling that could require Intel to hand over at least $150 million in liquidated damages to the smaller company, Intergraph said.

Judge John Ward of the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, ruled that Intel's Itanium products infringe on patented Intergraph technologies related to so-called parallel instruction computing (PIC). The judge said Intergraph's patents are "valid and enforceable" and that Intel's products "literally infringe" on parts of those patents, according to Intergraph.

Intel will ask the judge to reconsider the terms of his decision within the next 10 days, according to Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman at Intel. "We plan to file a motion for reconsideration and, if the judge denies that, we plan to appeal the ruling," Mulloy said.

Intergraph and Intel settled an earlier patent infringement case in April 2002. Under terms of that settlement, Intel paid Intergraph $300 million and licensed certain Intergraph technology patents. At the time, the companies also agreed to set liquidated damages for the PIC case, according to Intergraph's statement.

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