Word: chip
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Behind every great fortune," Balzac wrote, "there is a crime." That's the contention of the stunning lawsuit filed last week by Digital Equipment Corp. against microchip giant Intel. The great fortune in this case comes courtesy of the Pentium microprocessing chip, which runs 85% of the earth's personal computers and helped feed Intel $6.45 billion in revenues in the first quarter of 1997 alone. The alleged crime is Intel's "willful infringement" on 10 Dig-ital patents in building the Pentium series. And the suggested punishment: damages that could run into the billions and an injunction against continued...
Digital's surprise assault was impeccably timed: the previous week Intel had celebrated the launch of next-generation chip Pentium II. And the day of Digital's suit, microprocessor upstart Cyrix quietly filed its own patent-infringement claim against Intel. Digital followed a day later with full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and San Jose Mercury News. Wall Street took the bait, wrist slapping Intel's soaring stock down $6 and backslapping Digital up $2 in the belief that the microchip David wouldn't rile Goliath unless it had a really, really good case...
...analysts were asking whether the Digital action was an honest plea for justice or just the bared-fang attack of a cornered and wounded animal. The tottering hardware giant had bet heavily on its $2.5 billion Alpha microprocessor to return it to prosperity. Alpha is unquestionably the fastest chip on the market, but its speed hasn't overcome Intel's marketing clout. In 1996, according to Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Mercury Research, Intel shipped some 65 million Pentium chips, or 76% of the microprocessor market, compared with 200,000 Alphas. And this year looks grimmer still: 18 million Pentiums shipped through...
With the ramparts collapsing around him, Digital CEO Robert Palmer must have seen little choice but all-out attack. The lawsuit claims Intel infringed on 10 Digital patents related to Alpha and other chips--though Palmer doesn't claim this piracy occurred during negotiations between the companies in 1990 and '91. Intel was then considering licensing Alpha technology for its next-generation chip; after both companies signed a confidentiality agreement, Dig- gital revealed the Alpha design. But the talks fell apart, and Pentium, sans Alpha, went on to become the soul...
...HTML 3.2 is a widely respected standard, even though that fact greatly eases your travel on the Web.) But some are more high profile. pics, the Platform for Internet Content Selection, is a proposed standard that would let parents filter out offending Websites. It's a kind of V chip, except with no government involvement; you subscribe to the rating service of your choice...