Court Rules Altera Didn’t Violate Patents

San Jose-based Altera Corp. said a federal court has ruled that it did not violate Advanced Micro Devices Inc. patents, allowing the chip maker to pursue its own patent infringement claims against AMD. Sunnyvale-based AMD alleged in an August 1994 lawsuit that Altera violated its patents involving some of the primary technology used to design and manufacture complex programmable logic chips. The U.S. District Court in San Jose ruled that Altera’s use of the technology was covered by the cross-licensing agreement with Monolithic Memories. The court also decided that AMD’s use of Altera technology was not covered by the agreement, giving Altera the right to pursue claims of patent infringement against AMD.