posted on
Apr 17, 2007 12:52PM
In February of 2007, a petition was filed with the Patent and
Trademark office by an independent non-governmental entity. The
petition requests that certain of our microprocessor patents be
invalidated on the grounds of the alleged existence of previously
undisclosed prior art. While we cannot guarantee that the petition will
be unsuccessful, we strongly believe in the validity and enforceability
of the microprocessor patents which are the subject of the petition,
and believe the petition is without merit.
As separate applications for re-examination had already been
filed with the Patent and Trademark Office by parties involved in the
patent litigation pending in Texas, we found it curious, but not
alarming, when we learned of the apparently unrelated application filed
by the purported public-interest group, including some gratuitous and
disparaging statements included in their publicity-seeking press
release.
Claiming that a patent should not have been issued due to the
existence of prior art is a strategy that is often used defensively by
companies seeking to avoid liability for patent infringement. Various
efforts to claim the existence of prior art have been dealt with by our
licensing team and their attorneys in negotiations with companies that
at first had resisted licensing but later signed license agreements.
