OTHER NEWS - July 25, 1992

Intel Suffers New Chip Setback: Intel Corp. suffered a major setback in its efforts to keep “clone” microprocessors out of the market when a U.S. District Court judge upheld a crucial defense strategy used by Cyrix Corp. The ruling not only aids Cyrix but also increases the likelihood that other companies will prevail with the same defense in their legal battles with Intel. Cyrix, which markets a clone of Intel’s popular 386 computer-on-a-chip, has its chips built by the French semiconductor maker SGS Thomson. Cyrix and SGS Thomson argued that the chips were protected from any Intel patent infringement claims by virtue of an old patent cross-licensing deal between Mostek (later purchased by SGS Thomson) and Intel. The court upheld that claim.