Intel vs. Cyrix

[David G. Hough on validgh]

I was surprised, the last time I was in Fry's, to see that Intel now markets
80x87 coprocessors in a very consumer-oriented fashion, with large aisle
displays offering faster performance on PC applications.

Cyrix markets plug-compatible and superset 80387 replacements for which it
claims higher performance, lower power consumption, lower price, equal
accuracy on algebraic functions, and better accuracy on transcendental
functions.  
The claims are contained in a series of reports being distributed
this month to people that were registered in the 1988 Floating-Point
Indoctrination Lectures at Sun.  They previously received 80387 and 80960
reference manuals.
I recently corresponded with Warren Ferguson, 
convex.com!smu!ferguson, about the Cyrix parts.

So imagine my surprise the next day to read (imagine what a software patent
lawsuit will be like):
 
 From San Jose Mercury News, 21 December 1990, front page of business
section:

Start-up, Intel sue each other

Cyrix cries unfair; Intel files patent suit

A tiny Texas start-up has filed an unlawful trade practices lawsuit against
Intel Corp. of Santa Clara, charging the semiconductor giant with unfair
competition, including a campaign of misinformation about the start-up's
rival product.

In turn, Intel has filed its own suit, charging that Cyrix Corp.'s product -
a math co-processor used in personal computers to speed up arithmetic
calculations - copies Intel's patented design.

At stake is a product line that represented roughly 10 percent of Intel's
$3.1 billion in sales last year and an even larger share of its profits.

"Since January, Intel has engaged in what I can only describe as a campaign
of unlawful trade, intimidation and threats of customers, fraudulent
assertion of patent rights, and contractual interference,"
said Tom Brightman, a co-founder of Richardson Texas-based Cyrix.
"There is only so much you can stand."

Responded Intel spokeswoman Pam Pollace, "As with any (patent) infringement,
our position is we spend hundreds of million of dollars creating the products
that we do, and we welcome competition, but we want it to be fair and square."

Observers said the battle indicates the heightened competitive pressures on
Intel, which is seeing its domination of the lucrative microprocessor market
challenged by a growing number of smaller firms like Cyrix.

Cyrix was founded in 1988 by two Texas Instruments veterans who decided to
take on Intel in the math co-processor market, backed by the same venture
capitalists who financed Compaq Computer Corp. and Lotus Development Corp.

Cyrix's products themselves received glowing reviews in the trade press.
But when the firm began selling them, Intel began to muscle in to scare away
its customers, Cyrix's suit alleges.

The suit charges Intel with carrying out a smear campaign against Cyrix by
sending its customers a "white paper" containing false statements about the
start-up.  Intel offered discounts to dealers on the condition that they not
carry Cyrix math co-processors, and filed a harassment suit charging patent
infringement against a Cyrix supplier, the suit alleges.

But Ken Pearlman, an industry analyst at Dataquest Inc. in San Jose, said he
wasn't sure that Cyrix had made its case.  "I believe all those things (could)
have happened, but whether they are against the law is another matter," he
said.

Intel spokeswoman Pollace wouldn't respond to specific allegations of unlawful
or intimidating practices but said, "We don't engage in those types of 
activities."

She said Intel has contacted Cyrix since March urging the firm to stop
infringing on its patent but couldn't reach an agreement.  The patent suit was
therefore Intel's only recourse, Pollace said.

Several industry analysts said they would expect Intel to pull out all the 
stops to protect its turf in the booming co-processor market.

Michael Slater, editor of Microprocessor Report, an industry newsletter,
said the litigation is reminiscent of an earlier legal battle between Intel and
NEC Corp. in which Intel used a patent lawsuit to keep NEC out of the
microprocessor market for many years.  While NEC ultimately won the right
to produce its microprocessors, the products were by then too dated to be
competitive, Slater said.

Intel's current suit says Cyrix deliberately copied the patented
"floating point technology" used for accurate rounding of numbers in its
co-processors.  But some industry observers have questioned whether Intel,
in its math co-processor patent, incorporated parts of an industry standard
design that should be open to all.