3Dlabs Inc has filed a lawsuit against one of its OEM partners, STB Systems Inc, claiming it is owed $1.22m.Richardson, Texas- based STB is in violation of contracts signed between the two companies, and owes the money for the graphics acceleration chipsets it bought for its boards, according to Hamilton, Bermuda-based 3Dlabs. 3Dlabs seeks declaratory relief over certain controversies between the two parties. Although the company isn’t saying, those controversies appear to center around 3Dlab’s recent entry into the graphics board market with the acquisition last month of Dynamic Pictures Inc (CI No 3,452), which brought with it the Oxygen graphics accelerator card for Windows NT (CI No 3,457). That potentially puts 3D Labs into direct competition with its board level OEMs, including STB. The graphics chip market is fiercely competitive, and boards for the new generation of NT workstations is one of the fastest growing opportunities. Evans & Sutherland Inc acquired Accelgraphics Inc back in April for much the same reasons (CI No 3,395). It is unfortunate that 3Dlabs has had to reluctantly take action against our valuable customer said Osman Kent, president and CEO of the company, in a statement. The words closely echo those he used when taking legal action against 3Dlabs partner Texas Instruments Inc for misappropriation of trade secrets back in February (CI No 3,346). We have a responsibility to protect the interests of the company and our shareholders he continued. The dispute with TI was resolved six weeks after it was begun (CI No 3,378). The suit was filed at the Santa Clara County Court, California.
