Dallas, TX—In one of several recent patent litigation developments, Intergraph Corp. announced Sept. 10 that Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) and Intergraph have settled their respective patent disputes, and will dismiss all claims and lawsuits against each other. As part of the settlement, TI will pay $18 million to license three of Intergraph's patents that define key aspects of parallel instruction computing (PIC). TI uses Intergraph's PIC technology in its TMS320C6000 processors.

Intergraph's intellectual property (IP) division filed a lawsuit on Jan. 30, 2003, charging that its patented PIC technology is an essential component of the TI family of digital signal processors (DSPs) marketed under the name TMS320C6000, and that these TI products were infringing Intergraph's PIC patents.

TI filed two separate countersuits against Intergraph on May 5 and May 9, 2003, alleging patent infringement of eight patents against a variety of Intergraph products. The settlement announced Sept. 10 resolves TI's current and prospective patent claims against Intergraph.

Intergraph also reports that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed Sept. 6 a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Hewlett-Packard against Intergraph. Hewlett-Packard filed its complaint May 28, 2003, after Intergraph sued Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Gateway for patent infringement on Dec. 16, 2002. Hewlett-Packard had 20 days to amend its complaint.

In another matter, Intergraph reported that a Sept. 5, 2003, order from U.S. District Judge T. John Ward sets the trial schedule in Intergraph's lawsuit against Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Gateway. The trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 2, 2004. Intergraph filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Texas, on Dec. 16, 2002, charging the three companies with infringing computer system-level patents related to cache memory management technology.