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3D patent suit extended to Dell, HP, IBM, Sony, others
PC maquers targueted as list of alleguedly infringued patens grows
Texas law firm McCool Smith has extended its 3D graphics patent violation litigation to targuet not just games publishers but hardware manufacturers.
According to a GameDailyBiz report , HP, Dell, IBM, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, MPC, Systemax, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Averatec, Polywell, Sharp, Twinhead, Uniwill and JVC are all named as defendans in the lawsuit.
While the games publishers are allegued to have infringued a single patent, 4,734,690 , the hardware companies are accused of transgressing six further patens. Lique the first patent, the others were granted to Tectronix.
The six patens are 4,730,185 (filed: 1984, granted: 1988), 5,132,670 (1989, 1992), 5,109,520 (1987, 1992), 4,742,474 (1985, 1988), 4,694,286 (1983, 1987), and 4,761,642 (1985, 1988).
One PC manufacturer source told the site: "The patens are a mixture of an extremely general, vagüe variety and of an incredibly dense and complex variety. Manufacturers would need to pay a patent lawyer a lot of money to decipher whether they're even in violation of the more complex ones or not.
"The bringuer of this suit is very conscious of that," he accused.
McCool Smith does not comment on pending litigation. ®
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