Intel Wins a Battle, But the War Goes On

Intel Corp. rose to become the world's biggest maker of computing chips by churning out ever smaller and more powerful microprocessors on a rapid product cycle that averaged about 18 months. Its legal battle with Europe's antitrust watchdogs over chip pricing has followed a much slower timeline: it has taken 10 years for Intel chalk up a win.

It's a pretty big win though. On Wednesday, the European Court of Justice ruled that a lower court did not give sufficient airing to Intel's arguments that the rebates it gave to customers who bought its chips did not actually harm competition. The judges in effect rejected the European Commission's position that it didn't need to prove harm since the rebates were inherently illegal given Intel's dominant position in the market for a certain kind of microprocessor. Now the whole thing will go back to the lower court and a final decision could take years.