A Legal Quagmire

AMD's hopes for a court-enforced remedy to its perceived monopoly-hampered competition against Intel were dealt a serious blow in recent days when a federal judge tossed out a significant chunk of its antitrust case. Agreeing with Intel's earlier reminder that the scope of US law only covers lawsuits regarding conduct occuring in the US, Judge Joseph Farnan pointed out that the bulk of AMD's chip fabrication occurs in Germany, with packaging and test taking place in Asia, and that AMD's claims of illegal pricing deals with German retailers, for example, also aren't applicable to US court consideration.

AMD also has lawsuits against Intel filed in other countries, so at least some of the damage to AMD's legal aspirations is potentially reparable. However, the hurdle to AMD's courtroom success has certainly been raised and, with a US trial date now set for February of 2009 and further pushouts possible, there's plenty of time for Intel's marketplace product and pricing moves to make any AMD legal win moot. For more on this story, see the commentary from Ars Technica, BetaNews (with followup here), Extremetech and the Register.

Followup: Not so fast, Intel….