The long running Class Action dispute between ATI Technologies Inc. and people who purchased allegeldy HDCP-ready graphics card is drawing to a close. Back in the day of biggest competition between ATI and nVidia, both companies were claiming features left and right, even if some of those features weren't actually built it on the products themselves.
A hot issue with the release of Windows Vista was the fact that a lot of ATI Radeon graphics cards didn't support HDCP [High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection], even though cards were advertised as "HDCP ready", "HDCP compliant", "HDCP capable" and so on. This lead to a Class Action suit over at United States District Court for the Northern District of California [case #5:06-CV-01303-JW].
After couple of years of negotiation, a settlement was proposed and agreed on by both parties. Under the terms of settlement, if you are a resident in the USA and you purchased an ATI graphics card [only Built By ATI, not including AIBs such as Asus, Diamond, GigaByte, Palit, Sapphire, VisionTek and others] from one of following:
- Radeon® 9550; Radeon® 9800, All-in-Wonder® 9800; All-in-Wonder® 2006
- Radeon® x700; Radeon® x800; Radeon® x850, All-in-Wonder® x600; All-in-Wonder® x800
- Radeon® x1300; Radeon® x1600; Radeon® x1800; Radeon® x1900; All-in-Wonder® x1800; All-in-Wonder® x1900
- Any FireGL® or FireMV® series of graphics cards.
The purchase period included in the settlement was between January 1st, 2003 and March 31st, 2006. If the Court approves the proposed settlement, you may be eligible to receive a new ATI graphics card.
In the case of that 55,500 people [or less] register for the claim, they will receive an ATI Radeon 4650 512MB PCI Express graphics card. In case more than 55,501 people register, but less than 75,000 - ATI will offer a free ATI Radeon 2400 256MB PCI Express graphics card. In a case where more than 75,001 people register, ATI will write a check for 41.95 USD.
The final settlement hearing will be held on August 31, 2009 at 9AM.
Read Also
Official Settlement page
FAQ
Dates for submission
