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Fujitsu licenses Moore Processor Patent portfolio

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181401786

Fujitsu licenses Moore Processor Patent portfolio

Dylan McGrath
EE Times
(03/01/2006 1:28 PM EST)

SAN FRANCISCO — Fujitsu Ltd. has licensed the intellectual property protected by the Moore Microprocessor Patent (MMP) portfolio from Alliacense, the subsidiary created last year to administer the portfolio on behalf of owners Patriot Scientific Corp. and TPL Group, Alliacense said Wednesday (March 1). Financial terms of the licensing arrangement were not disclosed.

Fujitsu becomes the third system manufacturer to publicly disclose licensing of the MMP portfolio, following Hewlett-Packard Co. in January and Casio Computer Co. Ltd. last week. In announcing the Casio deal last week, Patriot Scientific revealed that semiconductor makers like Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are not being required to pay royalties on MMP licenses.

It is not known how MMP license deals with systems companies are structured. Speculation is that systems companies have agreed to make per-unit royalty payments.

Patriot Scientific said last week it has received a total of $24 million from the MMP licensing agreements with Intel, AMD and H-P.

Mac Leckrone, Alliacense president, said through a statement Wednesday that the spectrum of system-level digital products exploiting MMP design techniques is extensive. He said products ranging from televisions, digital cameras and portable music players to servers, medical equipment and automotive electronics systems are all designed with multiple semiconductor devices that use MMP portfolio technologies.

"Our Licensing Program rewards first movers in their industry sectors with substantial discounts," Leckrone said "By design, our licensing structure enables nimble and forward-thinking system manufacturers to disadvantage their competitors."

Patriot and TPL came together in June 2005 to settle a long-standing patent dispute so they could jointly pursue licensing revenue from third parties. The TPL Group (Cupertino, Calif.) has been granted full responsibility and authority for the commercialization and licensing of a unified portfolio of 10 patents.

Prior to the Patriot-TPL agreement, Patriot had been prosecuting litigation against major Japanese systems companies for alleged patent infringement — including Fujitsu — without success. TPL, which assumed responsibility for pursuing litigation on behalf of both companies following the agreement, filed a patent infringement suit alleging against Fujitsu and other Japanese companies last October.

Leckrone said Alliacense has contacted hundreds of system manufacturers around the globe and claimed that competition for early licensing berths in key market sectors has become intense.

"Once digital hardware vendors recognize their broad reliance on the intellectual property protected by the MMP Portfolio, they appreciate the critical need to secure continued access to the fundamental MMP technologies," Leckrone said.

The MMP portfolio is named after inventor Charles H. Moore, chief technology officer of TPL Group, who is known for inventing the Forth software programming language and for his work in the 1980s on stack-based microprocessors.