IBM Files ITC Complaint against ASUS – Licensing Disupte

By Nathan Kirsch

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. It seems that ASUS has products that are using IMB patents when it comes to Personal computer power supplies, automatic fan speed control and something about a method and apparatus for making a cluster of computers appear as a single host on a network.

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.

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