Re: completely artificial construction
Dunno about the "artificial construction"...
VLSI is simply the "legal arm" of NXP, which is the chip-fabbing part of the Philips blob. It makes sense in a way to incorporate the patent-wrangling part, given that it's a specialism in and of itself nowadays, and there's a measure of flexibility needed there that you just can't get as part of the main corporate/production body.
Especially when you have to play legal ball in the US, which is ..shall we say.. quite typical when it comes to stakes involving the unholy mess of patents and payouts. Choosing Waco is part of that. It's not as if worthies as Apple and Intel and... don't shop for "friendly" court districts or anything..
This isn't some shady ambulance chaser with some stupidly-obvious US patents trying to wring some cash out of a victim. This is ultimately a slugfight between Philips and Chipzilla involving real patents used in real tech.
And it'll drag on a bit, I reckon.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
