Intel May Appeal Ruling

Intel Corp said it is disappointed by a judges ruling in a lawsuit filed against it by Intergraph Corp and said that it is considering its options, up to and including a possible appeal. On Friday, a US district court in Alabama granted a preliminary injunction against Intel, preventing it from terminating Intergraphs rights as a strategic Intel customer. Intergraph makes high performance desktops and servers that run Intels Pentium, PentiumPro and Pentium II processors. We have to give them advance product, which we had stopped doing in August, said an Intel spokesman. We have to share early products with them. There is no financial impact here. Intergraph, in a lawsuit filed last November, accused Intel of anticompetitive behaviour, alleging that Intel is using its dominant market position to coerce Integraph to give up certain key patent rights. Intergraph is also suing Intel for patent infringement. Intel said that Intergraph acquired the Clipper technology in question from National Semiconductor Corp.