An old microprocessing patent that has in previous years has nabbed Intel, Dell and others was sprung on a clutch of South East Asian computer firms today.

Intergraph, which started out doing missile guidance systems in the 60s, acquired a microprocessor technology it called the Clipper and sold for a brief few years as an engine for graphics workstations in the late 80s.

Intergraph sued Intel for infringing its Clipper patent in 1997. After the case was settled in 2002, Integraph decided to go after three of the richest OEM's that had integrated the Intel microprocessor into their personal computers - Dell, Gateway and HP.

A deal it struck with Intel over another patent in March 2004 included a concession not to go after any Intel customers and Dell was immediately erased from its targeting systems. Gateway and HP were pursued for a while longer, however.

Gateway settled up two months later with payments of $10m and royalties of $1.25 per unit till February 2009.

It took HP till January last year to agree to cough up $141m and for both of them to wipe their hands of all patent disputes and share their intellectual property.

Intergraph now makes most of its money from selling surveillance and security systems for the military and civilian agencies, but its mapping systems also end up at places like Britain's Ordnance Survey.®

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• EC hearing all about patents today (12 July 2006)
• Intergraph files patent suit against HP, Dell, Gateway (18 December 2002)
• Intel loses Itanium patent infringement case (31 October 2002)
• Intel to appeal $150m Itanium patent ruling (11 October 2002)
• Judge re-rules for Intel in Intergraph patent fight (14 October 1999)