In a suit filed October 30 in United States District Court in Philadelphia, PA, Intersil Corporationis accusing Agere Systemsof “theft of trade secrets.”
The alleged misappropriation is regarding the Choice Medium Access Control (CMAC) technology for wireless local area networks (WLANs). Intersil’s release on the lawsuit says it owns the CMAC technology and that “virtually all of the WLAN products being shipped by Agere today utilize the Intersil MAC technology.”
Intersil is seeking an injunction against Agere or any of its partners from “developing, making, and/or selling MAC chips that use Intersil’s CMAC technology.”
Agere has responded by saying the lawsuit is without merit and that the company has legal rights to the technology. An Agere spokeswoman told the Reuters news agency that Agere jointly owns the CMAC technology with Intersil.
The suit is seen by Agere as a response to the lawsuit filed by Agere earlier this month on October 17 in U.S. District Court in Delaware against Intersil over six counts of patent infringement. In that case, Intersil also called the suit without merit.
Eric Griffith is the managing editor of 802.11 Planet.