Intergraph sued when, after several years of working with Intel, in 1996 Intel began making what Intergraph considered unreasonable demands for royalty-free rights to Intergraph patents already being used in Intel microprocessors. When Intergraph refused, it alleged that Intel abused its monopoly power by engaging in a series of illegal coercive actions intended to force Intergraph to give Intel access to the patents. It sued in 1997, claiming illegal coercive behavior, patent infringement, and antitrust violations.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, stated, ”Intel is not licensed under these patents.” In its ruling, the Court stated that Intergraph received “the full and exclusive right, title, and interest” to its so-called Clipper patents. The Court went on to find that no contract or other document or other evidence supports Intel's interpretation that Intergraph's patents were encumbered, and that Intel's interpretation was “too strained to be supported.”
An Intel spokesman said that the ruling does not mean that the court found that Intel was actually infringing the patents. He added: “We do not believe the patents in question are valid or have been infringed.”
Intergraph CEO James Taylor said:
“Based on this ruling, we can now pursue our case to receive a royalty for Intel's use of our technology in their Pentium products. The Court's ruling clears the way for us to pursue recovering the value taken from our employees, customers and shareholders by Intel's actions."