SAN FRANCISCO — Alliacense Monday (Jan. 23) announced that Hewlett-Packard has become the first system manufacturer to purchase a license to use intellectual property protected by the Moore Microprocessor Patent (MMP) portfolio.

Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) each licensed the MMP portfolio last July. Following this, Alliacense said, it has tuned the MMP Portfolio Licensing Program to serve leading manufacturers of computer, communications and entertainment systems.

Specific terms of the license purchased by HP were not disclosed.

The Alliacense MMP portfolio is named after inventor Charles H. Moore, chief technology officer of TPL Group, who is known for inventing the Forth software programming language and for his work in the 1980s on stack-based microprocessors.

Alliacense is a subsidiary of the TPL Group (Cupertino, Calif.), which last year merged its microprocessor patent interests with those of Patriot Scientific Corp. (San Diego), and formed Alliacense to handle licensing program management.

Prior to that merger, TPL Group and Patriot had been involved in years of litigation over title to certain patents. Patriot had been pursuing multiple semiconductor and computer companies, claiming that its patent portfolio covers technologies essential to modern processor design. TPL Group filed a suit against four Japanese semiconductor companies, claiming infringement of these patents, last October.

Mac Leckrone, Alliacense president, said through a statement that MMP portfolio licensing discussions are well under way with ``dozens`` of other major system manufacturers around the world.

“Today’s consumer electronics and computer systems each incorporate an increasing number of microprocessors that exploit the techniques protected by the MMP Portfolio,” Leckrone said. “We are very pleased to witness a globally respected system manufacturer confirm our MMP portfolio licensing program strategy.``

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