Intel Will Pay $1.25 Billion to Settle Disputes With Rival reports: "Ending the computer industry's most bitter legal war, the chip maker Intel agreed on Thursday to pay a rival, Advanced Micro Devices, $1.25 billion to settle antitrust and patent disputes."

$1.25 billion in wealth transferred, and untold hundreds of millions spent on litigation, patent acquisition, losses due to strategic adjustments in response to antitrust and patent law ... Yet another example of how the central state's artificial legislative patent and antitrust schemes do nothing but destroy and waste wealth. Well, not only that--they also enrich certain classes who parasitically benefit from the system, e.g. patent lawyers, litigators, and large companies.

(See also my post Nokia's infringement suit against Apple illustrates need to scrap US patent system.)

This is not a patent case, this is an antitrust case where patents were dragged in as ammunition.

Unlike patents which hurt everybody, antitrust rules affects only the biggest and wealthiest enterprise monsters, and I'm not particularly bothered that they have to spend resources on not squashing their smaller competitors too brutally. Focusing on their lost financial opportunity is completely missing the point; it's like complaining that police law enforcement is destroying wealth for the Mafia.

This case is actually a good example for why antitrust laws are needed. Intel is a great company that employs brilliant people to advance technology and make excellent products. But even such a company, once it had the power, developed a corporate culture based on bribery (N.Y. AG words) and making other companies offers they can't refuse. It's good that there are antitrust laws to prod (as actually happened) or force such companies back into being good corporate citizens.