A German court sided with R2 Semiconductor in its fight against Intel, ruling that the chip giant infringed on one of R2’s patents. This decision may result in some Intel processors and products based on these processors being banned from sale in Germany. Intel accused R2 of being a patent troll who abused low-quality patents and said it would appeal the decision.
Germany’s Dusseldorf District Court ruled that Intel infringed on Palo Alto, California-based R2 Semiconductor’s integrated voltage regulator technology patent. On Wednesday, the court issued an injunction banning the sale of Intel Core series “Ice Lake,” “Tiger Lake,” “Alder Lake” and Xeon Scalable “Ice Lake Server” processors, as well as PCs and servers based on these CPUs. Some of these processors have been discontinued, but Alder Lake chips are available in retail stores and in many systems that are still on the shelves. However, this ruling does not mean that these CPUs will disappear from the German market immediately.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that the ban does not cover Intel’s current Core “Raptor Lake” and Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” processors for desktops and laptops, so the impact of the ban is rather limited.
Intel expressed disappointment with the verdict and announced its intention to challenge the decision. The company criticized R2 Semiconductor’s litigation strategy, accusing it of filing a series of lawsuits against large companies, particularly after Intel managed to invalidate one of R2’s U.S. patents.
“R2 filed a series of lawsuits to extract huge sums of money from innovators like Intel,” Intel wrote in a statement. “R2 first filed suit against Intel in the U.S., but after Intel invalidated R2’s low-quality U.S. patents , R2 moved its lawsuit against Intel to Europe. Intel believes that a company like R2, which appears to be a shell company whose only business is litigation, should do this. It should not be done at the expense of consumers, workers, national security and the economy. to obtain injunctions on CPUs and other critical components.”
As Intel revealed last September, in its lawsuit against Intel, R2 asked the court to stop selling infringing processors, sell products equipped with these CPUs, and force a recall of products containing these processors. The company argued that imposing the ban was an overreaction.
At the same time, it is worth noting that Intel is protecting its customers in this legal action by covering any legal fees or liability they may incur. Therefore, as of September, Intel was unable to provide a reliable estimate of the financial impact of this legal action or the scope of potential losses, which could be significant.
In stark contrast to Intel, R2 welcomed the court’s decision and offered its own perspective on the legal dispute.
“We are pleased that the well-respected German court has issued an injunction and clearly found that Intel infringed R2’s integrated voltage regulator patent,” said R2 CEO David Fisher. “We intend to enforce this injunction and protect our valuable intellectual property. The global patent system is designed to protect inventors like me and R2 Semiconductor.”
R2 claims Intel plans to invest in R2 in 2015, roughly two years after the company first brought its fully integrated voltage regulator (FIVR) technology to market with its 4th Generation Core “Haswell” processors, but then abandoned negotiations.
“R2 has been a developer of semiconductor IP, similar to Arm and Rambus, for more than 15 years,” Fisher said. “Intel is very familiar with R2’s business—in fact, Intel’s investment in R2 in 2015 was The final phase, when Intel unilaterally terminated the process. R2 asked Intel if they had just published a technical paper on their approach.”
The person in charge of R2 said that Intel is the only company R2 has sued, which contradicts Intel’s patent troll accusations against R2.
“These lawsuits arise out of the fact that Intel is the only entity R2 alleges infringes on its patents,” Fisher said. “Intel continues to peddle its false narrative rather than accept responsibility for its repeated, chronic infringement of our patents. Not surprising, but disappointing.”