Conference hydra::amiga_v1

3642.0. "Motorola ordered to halt 68030 shipments" by MILKWY::JANZEN (Tom 2285421 FXO/28 Franklin MA) Mon Apr 02 1990 18:27

    Extract from VNS today 2-mar-1990:
    motorola ordered not to sell 68030
Motorola, Hitachi - Battle over patents ends with both ordered to pay damages
	{The Wall Street Journal, 30-Mar-90, p. B3}
   Each has been ordered to pay damages for infringements on the other's
 patents. But the result could be more devastating to Motorola than to Hitachi.
*******
* As part of the ruling, Motorola was ordered to stop selling its 68030
* microprocessor, which is used in desktop computers by such heavyweights as
******
 Hewlett-Packard and Apple, as long as the chip uses the offending patent. It
 wasn't clear whether the 68030 chip still uses the patent in question. "I
 really can't say," said a Motorola spokesman. "We're really not commenting at
 this time." Hitachi officials weren't available for comment. At issues was a
 1986 cross-licensing agreement between the companies, which allowed each to
 use some of the other's patents. Motorola alleged that Hitachi used
Motorola-owned technology covered by four patents that weren't part of the
 agreement. Hitachi executives directed the company's legal department to
 search for any Motorola infringements against Hitachi. In the ruling, Judge
 Lucius Bunton said neither company was licensed to use the other's patents
 under the 1986 agreement. He ordered Hitachi to stop marketing and selling its
 H8 microprocessors "for the duration" of the infringed Motorola patents, and
 to pay Motorola $1,901,460 in damages. Judge Bunton ordered Motorola to stop
 marketing or selling its 68030 chip "for the duration" of an infringed Hitachi
 patent, and to pay Hitachi $500,000 in damages. The ruling dealt a setback for
 Hitachi, for which the suits represented a new strategy among Japanese
 electronics concerns. Once content merely to defend themselves against
 pirating accusations by the U.S., which often ended in the Japanese companies
 capitulating, companies such as Hitachi have swung onto the offensive. In the
 1970s, when the chip industry was in its infancy, intellectual-property laws
 regarding the devices were vague and copying was rampant. The Japanese,
 admitted champions of cloning U.S. chips in the 1970s, often would simply pop
 open a popular U.S. chip and copy its contents. That all changed in the early
 1980s when patent and copyright laws began protecting chip designs more
 efficiently. U.S. chip makers began clamping down as Japanese chip makers
 began grabbing market share from once dominant Americans.

    And the next day the judge changed his mind and let Motorola ship
    68030's and Hitachi ship its parts pending appeal.
    Tom

    This is going to put a LOT of preassure on the 68040 group. I bet
    there are a lot of new "rush" orders being written today, and a
    major push on the production line. "Get them out the door before
    he changes his mind again."

    re: .2
    
    What if the 68040 uses the same "patent infringing technology" that the
    68030 does.  Has Wall Street reacted to this information?