Intel and Its Lawsuits

Intel was founded in Mountain View, California in 1968 

Intel had also for a number of years been embroiled in litigation. US law did not initially recognize intellectual property rights related to microprocessor topology (circuit layouts), until the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, a law sought by Intel and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).^[27] During the late 1980s and 1990s (after this law was passed) Intel also sued companies that tried to develop competitor chips to the 80386 CPU.^[28] The lawsuits were noted to significantly burden the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits.^[28] Antitrust allegations had been simmering since the early 1990s and had been the cause of one lawsuit against Intel in 1991. In 2004, AMD brought further claims against Intel related to unfair competition. In 2005, AMD brought further claims.

Acquisitions

On August 19, 2010, Intel announced that it planned to purchase McAfee, a manufacturer of computer security technology. The purchase price was $7.68 billion, and the companies said that if the deal were approved, new products would be released early in 2011.^[34] On January 26, 2011, the European Union approved the acquisition, after Intel agreed to provide rival security firms with all necessary information that would allow their products to use Intel's chips and personal computers.^[35] After the acquisition, Intel had about 90,000 employees, including about 12,000 software engineers.^[36]

On August 30, 2010, Intel and Infineon Technologies announced that Intel would acquire Infineon's Wireless Solutions business.^[37] Intel planned to use Infineon’s technology in laptops, smart phones, netbooks, tablets and embedded computers in consumer products, eventually integrating its wireless modem into Intel’s silicon chips.^[38]

In March 2011, Intel bought most of the assets of Cairo-based SySDSoft.^[39]

In July 2011, Intel announced that it had agreed to acquire Fulcrum Microsystems Inc., a company specializing in network switches.^[40] The company was previously included on the EE Times list of 60 Emerging Startups.^[40]

On October 1, 2011, Intel reached a deal to acquire Telmap, an Israeli-based navigation software company. The purchase price was not disclosed, but Israeli media reported values around $300 million to $350 million.^[41]

Lawsuits

Intel has often been accused by competitors of using legal claims to thwart competition. Intel claims that it is defending its intellectual property. Intel has been plaintiff and defendant in numerous legal actions.

In September 2005, Intel filed a response to an AMD lawsuit,^[159] disputing AMD's claims, and claiming that Intel's business practices are fair and lawful. In a rebuttal, Intel deconstructed AMD's offensive strategy and argued that AMD struggled largely as a result of its own bad business decisions, including underinvestment in essential manufacturing capacity and excessive reliance on contracting out chip foundries.^[160] Legal analysts predicted the lawsuit would drag on for a number of years, since Intel's initial response indicated its unwillingness to settle with AMD.^[161][162] In 2008 a court date was finally set,^[163] but in 2009 Intel settled with a $1.25 billion payout to AMD (see below).^[164]

In October 2006, a Transmeta lawsuit was filed against Intel for patent infringement on computer architecture and power efficiency technologies. The lawsuit was settled in October 2007, with Intel agreeing to pay US$150 million initially and US$20 million per year for the next five years. Both companies agreed to drop lawsuits against each other, while Intel was granted a perpetual non-exclusive license to use current and future patented Transmeta technologies in its chips for 10 years.

On November 4, 2009, New York's attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corp, claiming the company used "illegal threats and collusion" to dominate the market for computer microprocessors.

On November 12, 2009, AMD agreed to drop the antitrust lawsuit against Intel in exchange for $1.25 billion.^[164] A joint press release published by the two chip makers stated "While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development."

Anti-competitive allegations

See also: AMD v. Intel

Japan

In 2005, the local Fair Trade Commission found that Intel violated the Japanese Antimonopoly Act. The commission ordered Intel to eliminate discounts that had discriminated against AMD. To avoid a trial, Intel agreed to comply with the order.

In July 2007, the European Commission accused Intel of anti-competitive practices, mostly againstAMD.^[173] The allegations, going back to 2003, include giving preferential prices to computer makers buying most or all of their chips from Intel, paying computer makers to delay or cancel the launch of products using AMD chips, and providing chips at below standard cost to governments and educational institutions.^[174]Intel responded that the allegations were unfounded and instead qualified its market behavior as consumer-friendly.^[174] General counsel Bruce Sewell responded that the Commission had misunderstood some factual assumptions as to pricing and manufacturing costs.^[175]

In February 2008, Intel stated that its office in Munich had been raided by European Union regulators. Intel reported that it was cooperating with investigators.^[176] Intel faced a fine of up to 10% of its annual revenue, if found guilty of stifling competition.^[177] AMD subsequently launched a website promoting these allegations.^[178][179] In June 2008, the EU filed new charges against Intel.^[180] In May 2009, the EU found that Intel had engaged in anti-competitive practices and subsequently fined Intel €1.06 billion (US$1.44 billion), a record amount. Intel was found to have paid companies, including Acer, Dell, HP,Lenovo and NEC,^[181] to exclusively use Intel chips in their products, and therefore harmed other companies including AMD.^{[181][182][183]} The European Commission said that Intel had deliberately acted to keep competitors out of the computer chip market and in doing so had made a "serious and sustained violation of the EU's antitrust rules".^[181] In addition to the fine, Intel was ordered by the Commission to immediately cease all illegal practices.^[181] Intel has stated that they will appeal against the Commission's verdict.^[181]

South Korea

In September 2007, South Korean regulators accused Intel of breaking antitrust law. The investigation began in February 2006, when officials raided Intel's South Korean offices. The company risked a penalty of up to 3% of its annual sales, if found guilty.^[184] In June 2008, the Fair Trade Commission ordered Intel to pay a fine of US$25.5 million for taking advantage of its dominant position to offer incentives to major Korean PC manufacturers on the condition of not buying products from AMD.^[185]

United States

New York started an investigation of Intel in January 2008 on whether the company violated antitrust laws in pricing and sales of its microprocessors.^[186] In June 2008, the Federal Trade Commission also began an antitrust investigation of the case.^[187] In December 2009 the FTC announced it would initiate an administrative proceeding against Intel in September 2010.^{[188][189][190][191]}

In November 2009, following a two year investigation, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued Intel, accusing them of bribery and coercion, claiming that Intel bribed computer makers to buy more of their chips than those of their rivals, and threatened to withdraw these payments if the computer makers were perceived as working too closely with its competitors. Intel has denied these claims.^[192]

On July 22, 2010, Dell agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pay $100M in penalties resulting from charges that Dell did not accurately disclose accounting information to investors. In particular, the SEC charged that from 2002 to 2006, Dell had an agreement with Intel to receive rebates in exchange for not using chips manufactured by AMD. These substantial rebates were not disclosed to investors, but were used to help meet investor expectations regarding the company's financial performance; the SEC said that in the first quarter of 2007 they amounted to 70% of Dell's operating income. Dell eventually did adopt AMD as a secondary supplier in 2006, and Intel subsequently stopped their rebates, causing Dell's financial performance to fall.^{[193][194][195]}

Market share

According to IDC, while Intel still enjoys the most market share in both the overall worldwide PC microprocessor market (79.3%) and the mobile PC microprocessor (84.4%) in the second quarter of 2011, the numbers decreased by 1.5% and 1.9% compared to the first quarter.^[196][197]

Per Passmark's CPU benchmark, which takes into account individual benchmarking of their software and each system results are reported with, Intel has retained 70% and more of the active market versus AMD since Q1 2008.^[198]

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