IP company sues AMD over patents
Opti, an intellectual property company, alleges that the chipmaker violated patents with its Opteron processors and other products.
Opti, which is based in Mountain View, California, alleges in its patent infringement suit that the chipmaker infringed on patents related to "predictive snooping" technology.
Several months ago, Opti reached an $11 million cash settlement with graphics chipmaker Nvidia over similar patent infringement claims, Bernard Marren, Opti's chief executive, said Friday.
Opti alleges that AMD infringed on its patents 5,710,906, 5,813,036 and 6,405,291. The technology is designed to shorten the delay of an inquire cycle when a PCI bus controller receives a data transfer request from a PCI bus master.
The company asserts that its three patents on "predictive snooping of cache memory for master-initiated accesses" were infringed by AMD, which allegedly made, sold and offered chips and core logic products based on the predictive snooping technology.
"We notified (AMD) four years ago that they were violating our patents and how they were doing it," Marren said. "They use our technology in their Opteron processors and other processors."
AMD declined to comment Friday, noting it has not received a copy of the lawsuit. Opti's announcement said it filed its case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Opti, which five years ago sold its chipset design operations to concentrate on licensing its patents, is seeking a jury trial. The company is also seeking an injunction and undisclosed damages.