IBM Files ITC Complaint against ASUSTeK

Business Wire, Dec 6, 2007

ARMONK, N.Y. -- IBM today announced it has filed a complaint against ASUSTeK (based in Taiwan) and its North American subsidiary, ASUS Computer International, with the United States International Trade Commission. The complaint details the infringement of IBM patents by certain ASUSTeK computer products and components, and requests an exclusion order against the importation of infringing ASUSTeK computer products and components into the United States.

IBM has made repeated attempts to reach a licensing agreement between the companies. IBM's position has been -- and remains -- that ASUSTeK either must license or stop using IBM's patented technology.

IBM's complaint identifies three patents that are infringed by ASUSTeK products imported into the U.S. These three patents cover important aspects of computer systems, including power supplies, computer cooling and computer clustering capabilities. The infringing ASUSTeK computer products include notebook computers, so-called barebones computer systems, servers, routers and various computer components.

IBM annually invests billions of dollars in research and development and has extensive patents and other intellectual property in areas including personal computing, servers, networking, semiconductors and other computer components.

The specific patents asserted in the IBM complaint are:

1.  U.S. Patent No. 5,008,829:     Personal computer power supply
2.  U.S. Patent No. 5,249,741:     Automatic fan speed control
3.  U.S. Patent No. 5,371,852:     Method and apparatus for making a
                                   cluster of computers appear as a
                                   single host on a network

The United States International Trade Commission is an independent federal agency with authority to bar the importation of products that infringe U.S. patents.