Patriot is taking the action in respect of three patents that, according to Patriot:
"Describe the principal means used by the microprocessor industry to increase the internal operating speed of modern microprocessors."
The patent portfolio says Patriot encompasses the fundamental workings of well over $18 billion dollars worth of microprocessors sold in the United States last year. From the time the patents were issued, the company estimates that over $150 billion dollars worth of microprocessors have made use of Patriot's technology.
Patriot filed an action against PC vendor Sony on 23rd December 2003, followed a day later by actions against Fujitsu, Toshiba and NEC. An action against Pentium seller Matsushita followed shortly after, together with an announcement that the suits had been consolidated.
According to Patriot's president and CEO, Jeff Wallin:
"Significant segments of the global electronics industry are currently benefiting from technology owned by Patriot Scientific. Every microprocessor operating at speeds above 110 - 120 MHz may be in violation of our patents. This has been thoroughly verified by leading experts. It is now time for Patriot Scientific and its shareholders to be properly remunerated."
But Patriot has not yet filed suit against chip giant Intel, which commentators suggest is the primary target of the small semiconductor design company. Instead Intel took pre-emptive action by filing its own declaratory action last week, asking a US district court to declare that its products did not infringe on Patriot's patents.
Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel, told CNET news.com:
"We filed this on behalf of our customers".
According to Wallin, Patriot:
"will respond to this action by Intel in a vigorous manner, including a substantial likelihood that Patriot will assert counterclaims for, among other things, infringement."
The dispute is the latest in a spate of US suits filed by small companies with what appear to be fairly fundamental patent rights.
The most notorious of these is the ongoing battle between tiny Eolas Technologies and Microsoft over alleged patent infringement in the Internet Explorer browser. Although an appeal is ongoing, Microsoft is facing damages of around $520 million, and the browser industry is facing big changes in the way web pages are designed.
