CPU technologist sues patent pool firms

LONDON – Microprocessor technologist Charles H. Moore (Chuck Moore) has announced he has filed a law suit against patent licensing firms Technology Properties Ltd. LLC (The TPL Group) and Alliacense LLC alleging fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract.

Moore is also requesting preliminary injunctive relief against TPL and Alliacense. Moore also stated that he has filed suit individually against the officers of TPL and Alliacense, namely: Daniel E. Leckrone, TPL Group chairman; Daniel M. Leckrone, Alliacense president; and Michael Davis, Alliacense senior vice president of licensing.

Moore, who has developed many patents on microprocessors and is known as the inventor of the Forth programming language, filed the suit in the Superior Court of Santa Clara, California. Numerous patents, originally filed by him, are included in the Moore Microprocessor Patent (MMP) portfolio. The MMP was owned and administered by Patriot Scientific Corp. (San Diego, Calif.) until an agreement was reached in June 2005. Under that agreement, in settlement of an earlier dispute over conflicting microprocessor patents, Patriot agreed to unify its interests in the MMP patents with those of TPL Group.

At that point the MMP portfolio became jointly owned by the TPL Group and Patriot. Alliacense, a subsidiary of TPL acted as the licensing agent and the companies achieved some success in persuading semiconductor companies including Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.and several Japanese companies to pay for licenses.Although details were disclosed it is thought that many of the sums paid in the millions of dollars were in the form of one-off payments for licenses in perpetuity.

The MMP portfolio includes seven U.S. patents as well as their European and Japanese counterparts that Patriot, TPL and Alliacense argued cover fundamental technology used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), embedded processors and system-on-chip (SoC) devices.

Subsequently in April 2010 Patriot filed suit in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Diego against TPL alleging contractual breach on non-payment of $1 million that was due on Feb. 28, 2010.