It’s taken a month or six for the lawyers to put together a case, but Intel Corp has now duly filed suit against Advanced Micro Devices Inc alleging copyright infringement of both the microcode in the 80386 microprocessor and the control program stored on the chip. The suit was filed in US District Court in Austin, Texas, where Am386 chips are made. Advanced Micro already has a suit in against Intel alleging that the company uses litigation to seek to monopolise the market for its chips. Separately, in reporting third quarter figures (CI No 1,778), Intel said its most advanced microprocessors, the 80486 and 80386SL chips, continued their growth, but older 80386SX and 80386 parts were off from the record shipment levels of the second quarter. The figures showed a 5% decline in sales compared with the second quarter and a 13% fall in earnings per share, but were better than feared after Intel warned they’d be dull, so the shares rose $3.50 to hit $42 even.
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