Intel Asks U.S. to Ban Sale of Hyundai Memory Chips

SAN FRANCISCO —  Intel, vowing to protect its “intellectual property,” on Wednesday launched a barrage of patent infringement litigation against Korea’s Hyundai conglomerate and a group of U.S. distributors and designers of Hyundai semiconductor products.

Intel filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Jose and asked the U.S. International Trade Commission for an exclusion order banning the importation of Hyundai semiconductor products. In doing so, Santa Clara-based Intel acknowledged that the Korean company currently has only a tiny share of the U.S. market.

“We don’t want to wait until they are hurting us,” said Thomas Dunlap, Intel’s corporate counsel, who noted that Hyundai is aggressively building semiconductor capacity. “We’re taking advantage of the part of the trade law that deals with prospective injury,” he added.

The exclusion order Intel is seeking from the ITC would bar the importation of Hyundai EPROMs, or erasable programmable read-only memory chips, in any form--as individual chips, on circuit boards or in computers such as the Hyundai-built Blue Chip personal computer. ITC actions take 12 to 18 months to decide, Intel said.

Other Defendants Named

Officials of Hyundai Electronics America, based in Santa Clara, could not be reached for comment.

Intel also filed a companion patent infringement lawsuit involving EPROMs against Hyundai as well as Atmel Corp., International CMOS Technology, Cypress Electronics, All-American Semiconductor, Pacesetter Electronics and George Perlegos, president of Atmel and a former Intel employee.

Dunlap said the products that allegedly infringe on Intel’s patents account for 70% of Intel’s EPROM line.

Intel also filed a patent infringement suit involving D-RAMs--another kind of memory chip--against Hyundai and Vitelic Corp. Intel doesn’t make D-RAMs but holds several key patents for their manufacture.

‘Strategic Decision’

None of the defendants reached on Wednesday would comment on the Intel action.

Dunlap said Intel filed suit without first offering the offending companies licenses, its usual way of protecting intellectual property. He said in this case, Intel made a “strategic decision” to file suit.

He said Intel believes that all the defendants are related to Hyundai, either as designers or distributors, although an official of Atmel said the firm had no such relationship.

U.S. semiconductor firms have become increasingly assertive in protecting their patent rights. In May, an administrative law judge found that several Asian chip-makers had infringed on patents held by Texas Instruments.

The TI and Intel lawsuits, Dunlap said, “show the general atmosphere in the semiconductor industry.”