Multimedia company Creative Technology Ltd announced that it has settled its year-long legal battle with chipmaker Cyrix Corp over trademark infringement. Specific terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Creative says they included a stipulated permanent injunction prohibiting Cyrix from the use or distribution of Creative’s software drivers; from claims that Cyrix’s XpressAUDIO feature is Sound Blaster compatible unless it supports without material error all software written for the Sound Blaster interface; and from displaying Creative’s Sound Blaster and other trademarks which occur when using the Sound Blaster audio driver supplied with Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. Creative is calling the settlement a clear victory in the case, filed in March of last year (CI No 3,122), which alleged that Cyrix made false claims that its Media GX system is compatible with Creative’s Sound Blaster product, and that diagnostic programs on GX-based systems falsely identified Creative as the manufacturer of its audio components.
