Squeeze put on Compaq over compression

Compaq is being sued for alleged patent infringement relating to a technology which is critical to the MPEG-2 video compression standard.

The lawsuit, over a development that helps to reduce computer data storage space, was initiated by a group of six companies and a US university.

A related lawsuit has also been filed in Dusseldorf.

The group, which includes Matsushita Electric, France Telecom, General Instrument, Mitsubishi Electric and Columbia University, is seeking to block Compaq from selling PCs that use the technology, claiming that doing so violates 26 patents.

The plaintiffs are seeking damages that could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The lawsuit alleges that Compaq is using MPEG technology belonging to MPEG LA, a consortium of 16 patent holders, without permission.

Baryn Futa, the consortium's manager and chief executive, said: "This court action is an unfortunate but necessary step to put an end to the patent infringement by Compaq."

Futa claimed that for the past three years, Compaq has been told a number of times that it can obtain a licence for the patents but has refused to do so.The lawsuit also alleges that Compaq actively induces its customers to infringe the patents by selling, instructing and encouraging customers to decode a stored MPEG-2 video signal.

MPEG-2 allows the storage and playing of full-length films on DVD players, through digital satellite television broadcasts and over digital cable television networks.

A representative for Compaq said: "The company cannot comment until we review the case."

Meanwhile, Compaq has announced it is to bundle version 7.0 of RedHat Linux with its Proliant servers. It will be pre-installed on the Proliant DL360 and Proliant ML330 servers.

The company has also added the 7PL290 to its line of Presario 7000 desktop PCs. It features an AMD 1.1Ghz Athlon processor, 60Gb hard drive, and CD-RW and DVDRom drives, and costs $1699. A budget 700Mhz Duron-based computer with 20Gb hard drive and CD-RW has been released for $899.

Separately, Compaq has cut the prices of its Presario 5000, 1800, 1400 and 1200 series of desktop PCs by up to $250.