Intel: Government Admits No Evidence Of Harm

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March 02, 1999 (1:12 PM EST)

Intel: Government Admits No Evidence Of Harm

By Jack Robertson ,

Intel argued in a pretrial brief released Tuesday that the government's own expert witness admitted he could find no evidence that Intel had "diminished innovation by industry" in withholding proprietary data from Digital Equipment, Compaq, and Intergraph.

The brief quoted Frederic Scherer, professor of corporate management at Harvard University, in a deposition saying he "could not find evidence" of any Intel conduct that "would adversely affect the R&D expenditure or adversely affect price competition" by any other companies in the industry.

Intel reiterated its position that the company declined to give advance sensitive proprietary details of microprocessors under development to the three companies because of patent infringement suits each had filed against Intel. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant said it feared any advance information it gave Digital Equipment, Compaq, or Intergraph could be used against it in the law suits.

The brief said Intel is selective in companies that receive such early notice of next-generation microprocessors. Intel said it has three different "color books" of data -- yellow, orange, and red -- in ascending order of sensitivity. Various customers get access to one or more of the books, the brief said.

Intel said the company's right to protect its intellectual property still had no adverse effect on microprocessor competition. It cited Digital Equipment's own claim to having the most advanced MPU on the market, as well as rival processors from Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Motorola, Sun, National Semiconductor, and Integrated Device Technology (IDT).

Ironically, Advanced Micro Devices wasn't acknowledged in the Intel brief, except for the statement, "The government is reduced to adopting the theory espoused by Intel competitor and frequent litigation adversary, AMD."

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