Intergraph and MicroUnity brought suits against Intel when placed in similar circumstances.

FORBES: Dear Silicon Valley: Please Quit Whining About Patents

The agency's ire was fueled by Intel's use of technical data as a weapon in its legal disputes with Compaq, Digital Equipment and Intergraph.

ECONOMIST: Intel

ESRI's publicly traded competitors, including MapInfo, Intergraph and Autodesk, are all growing nicely, too, and they often outhustle ESRI in markets such as direct mail targeting and retail store site selection.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Intel is one obvious target although on the day Mr Jackson's findings were published, another American court ruled that the chip maker can cut off product support to Intergraph, a computer maker that had sued Intel over an alleged infringement of its patents.

ECONOMIST: And the winners are

In its complaint, the FTC said Intel harmed competition when it stopped providing samples of upcoming Pentium chips to three companies that rely on the processors to build Intel-based systems -- Compaq, Digital Equipment Corp. (which was acquired by Compaq last year) and Intergraph Corp.

CNN: Intel claims FTC found no evidence of harm