VIA Technologies (
The Taiwanese company said yesterday it plans to file multiple lawsuits against Intel in the US and Taiwan over patent infringement.
PHOTO: AFP
Among other claims are VIA's accusations that Intel employees willfully destroyed the company's balloons and other marketing material at the Computex 2001 trade show held in Taipei earlier this year.
The incident has become known as "the battle of the balloons."
VIA's announcement comes just days after Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, filed suit against the chipset maker.
Intel alleges that the Taiwanese firm has infringed on five Pentium 4 microprocessor patents and has as a result filed its suit in the US state of Delaware.
VIA plans to file its suits as soon as US courts open for business this week.
"Intel has not obtained a license from VIA for the Pentium 4 microprocessor or the 845 chipset," Richard Brown, VIA's marketing director, said in a statement.
"The lawsuits will be aimed at stopping the infringement of VIA's patents by these products."
According to VIA, Intel's Pentium 4 processors and the Intel 845 chipset use intellectual property patented by VIA.
Processors, or CPUs, are the brains of a computer, while chipsets control the flow of information between the CPU and other parts of a computer.
Both Intel products infringe on patents filed by companies now wholly or partially owned by VIA, according to Ted Lee (
Some of the patents belong to Cyrix, the former CPU division at US-based National Semiconductor Corp, and Centaur Technology, another US-based chip designer purchased by VIA,
The company also filed a complaint with Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission, accusing Intel of anti-competitive behavior.
The Taiwanese firm claims Intel has conspired to keep VIA chipset products off the market by intimidating potential customers, threatening to sue manufacturers who use its chipsets.
Then there's "the battle of the balloons." Although Intel has denied its employees destroyed VIA's marketing materials, a number of eye-witnesses have verified VIA's claims.
On this count, the company is filing a criminal suit for the willful destruction of property.
Josie Taylor, a Hong Kong-based Intel spokeswoman, declined to comment on the issue, saying Intel has not yet received any documents from VIA about the suits.
Analysts in Taipei say the VIA lawsuit is a repeat of a courtroom battle fought between the two companies last year.
"The countersuit is not a surprise, but this time VIA reacted very quickly," said Chris Hsieh, chip analyst at ING Barings in Taipei. "They were prepared for this suit."
Two chipsets VIA has made for use with Intel's Pentium 4 are at the heart of the dispute. VIA has already begun selling the two chipsets -- despite the fact it does not hold the necessary license from Intel.
Two other Taiwanese firms -- Acer Labs (揚智) and Silicon Integrated Systems (矽統) -- have both obtained licenses from Intel to make chipsets to be used with Pentium 4s. VIA and Intel have so far failed to reach a deal on the license.
The disputed VIA chipsets allow companies to build cheaper Pentium 4 computers than are available today. Currently, high-speed Pentium 4 chips work best with Rambus memory chips, while the VIA made chipsets work with a competing memory chip called DDR, which is as much as four times cheaper.
Last year, the two firms battled over a similar issue with Pentium III chips. Analysts say the difference then was that VIA paid royalties to Intel, even though the company didn't hold a license.
This time, VIA has not been paying royalties, which could hurt its case. Intel and VIA settled the Pentium 3 case out of court. Both sides have remained mum on the terms of that settlement.
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