(c) 1995 Copyright Nando.net
(c) 1995 Associated Press
WASHINGTON (Nov 3, 1995 - 01:36 EST) -- Dell Computer Corp. will
settle an antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission by dropping
its patent claims to a widely used design feature installed in
thousands of personal computers.
The decision resolves charges that Dell unfairly restrained
competition by threatening to enforce an undisclosed patent right
against companies that adopted the "VL-bus" design standard, the FTC
said Thursday.
VL-bus helps transfer instructions between a computer's central
processing unit and its peripherals, such as a hard drive or video
display hardware, and is common in computers with "486" chips.
But a spokesman for Dell, a leading U.S. maker of personal computers
based in Austin, Texas, said the FTC announcement was moot because it
merely formalizes the company's own decision in 1993 to stop enforcing
its patents.
Dell admitted no wrongdoing by agreeing to the settlement.
"We actually dropped our patent claims two years ago, prior to having
heard from the FTC," said spokesman Dean Kline. "The implication is
that there is a change and there isn't a change."
According to the FTC, Dell was a member of the Video Electronics
Standards Association when the nonprofit began work on the design
standard in response to demand for faster graphics performance.
Major U.S. computer hardware and software makers approved VL-bus in
1992 and a Dell representative allegedly certified that he knew of no
patent, trademark or copyright that the design would violate.
But after computer makers sold more than 1.4 million PCs using VL-bus,
the FTC said, Dell began telling some association members that their
use of the VL-bus standard violated a patent Dell obtained in 1991.
Kline said Dell was also revising its procedures to ensure that its
employees are "completely up to speed on all of our patent
portfolios."