Microsoft, Sony, world+dog object to Intel-AMD plans

IT'S NOT just distributors who object to the public seeing the terms of their deals with AMD and Intel. Just about everyone else involved does, too.

See Distributors object to AMD-Intel plans.

A whole slew of companies including HP, Egenera, Best Buy, Circuit City, Acer and Microsoft have objections to being dragged into the fight between AMD and Intel, and more such objections are expected to be filed in the coming days. Sony asked the judge for its objections to be considered along with other companies including Toshiba, NEC, and Fujitsu. For example, Microsoft filed an objection to the proposed protective order AMD and Intel wants the judge to agree.

But at the end of last week, Microsoft said the judge in the case should let its lawyers look at information and documents relating to licensing programmes.

It is particularly concerned about the "preparation or prosecution of any application or license for a patent, copyright or other intellectual property right relating to operating systems, applications, tools or other software technologies."

It doesn't want its confidential data to be shared willy nilly.

It also wants the court to provide protection to Microsoft for information related to marketing, manufacturing or release of microprocessors, chipsets, OSes, apps, tools or other products.

Microsoft also wants to know who the in house litigation lawyers are, as they will have access to information and documents produced by Microsoft.

The Japanese giants don't want their confidential materials to be disclosed to all and sundry. They also want a limitation on the amount of data, and object to the inclusion of foreign investigations and proceedings. They do not want other proceedings in other US states to be produced. Previous litigation in Japan shouldn't be disclosed, including that of the firms' lawyers. They do not want non public pricing information revealed, or their plans, or their capacities, or their customer lists, or their budgets, or their inventions, or their returns on investments, or, it seems, anything.

HP has a different beef. It said in its objections that many documents required are highly sensitive, and even though they're over 24 months old, technical documents in particular are highly sensitive. It wants judge Farman to extend the period to 36 months.

Best Buy wants the court to extend confidentiality to board meetings and non public negotiations with customers, as well as providing another list of potential alternative paragraphs to the proposed AMD Intel protection order.

Poor Judge Joseph Farnan is going to have a lot of reading to do over the next weeks, months, and years at the J. Caleb Bloggs Federal Building in Wilmington. µ

See Also
INQ coverage of the AMD-Intel case
Consolidated Japanese objections for example