Phoenix piles in on AMD-Intel case

[Alpine]

Trusted Platform Module raises its head

EVERY CLOUD has a silver lining and that's never been truer than for lawyers working for IT companies that have found themselves dragged into the AMD Intel antitrust case.


The latest firm forced to get its learned friends is Phoenix Technologies, maker of hand crafted BIOSes to the PC industry. And welcome to a little spat over Trusted Computing.

In a deposition to the Delaware Court, which surely will have to hire a warehouse to put the millions of documents being collected, Phoenix said it had "general" and specific objections to document requests.

For example. "Phoenix objects to each and every document request, definition and instruction, to the extent they seek to impose discovery obligations that differ from or exceed the obligations set forth in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure."

Phoenix objects to the time, manner and place demanded by the plaintiff, AMD. It will produce documents and the rest only at a time and place to be mutually agreed. It doesn't want the subpoena to reveal confidentia, proprietary and trade secret information of Phoenix, its customers or third parties. It thinks that requests from Intel and AMD are unreasonable, annoying, expensive and burdensome. If AMD really wants stuff from Phoenix it can get it from Intel. And it thinks the term "Trusted Platform Module" is vague, ambiguous and unintelligible. Surely many people would agree with that? In fact, most of the objections Phoenix makes relate to the Trusted Platform Module.

The INQuirer