Patriot Scientific and TPL Group, co-holders of the Moore Microprocessor Patent Portfolio [MMPP], announced today that they have settled their suit for patent infringement with JVC, NEC Electronics, Panasonic, and Toshiba.

The suit revolved around clocking technology used in most microprocessors since 1994 and attributed to Chuck Moore.

The details of the settlement were not revealed, but the patent holders said the settlement includes the licensing of the technology to the defendants [above].

After some initial wrangling between Patriot Scientific and TPL back in 2005, both companies joined forces to file suit against microprocessor companies using the technology. The list of companies using MMPP includes every major chip manufacturer in high tech and in consumer electronics.

"Patriot bought the IP and started looking at everybody’s chips and discovered, lo and behold, almost everybody is using this particular technology," said Nathan Brookwood, principal at Insight 64.

Patriot is what is known in the industry as a patent troll, added Brookwood, mainly because it did not create the patent but rather bought the patent and then went out, trolling, to discover who might be in violation of it.

Previously, Patriot and TLP settled with AMD, Intel, and Fujitsu among others.

Few companies, if any, remain to settle with Patriot and TPL.

In a far more significant suit among microprocessor giants, plaintiff AMD's suit for anti-competitive business practices against Intel is currently in the discovery stage with an agreed-upon trial date set for April, 2009.

In discovery, the defendant must produce any and all information, including electronically created documents, such as emails, that the court considers relevant to the case.

According to a news story in InfoWorld on March 12, 2007 Intel admitted that some "internal e-mails that may be important to the case were missing as a result of errors."

Recent court rulings have not looked favorably on companies that cannot produce relevant e-mails.