A case started in a Delaware district court on the 12th of January naming Intel, Microsoft and others and involving alleged infringement of a recovery system for operating systems.

Xpoint Technologies alleges Intel, Farstone, Acronis, HP, Dell, Microsoft, Acer, Gateway and Toshiba have breached patent numbers  7,024,581 and 7,430,686 - both called Data Processing Recovery System and Method Spanning Multiple Operating System.

Frank Wang is the CEO of privately held Xpoint, and worked for IBM, Ungermann-Bass, and later Tandem, which bought Ungermann-Bass. He said in his filing that when he was at IBM he worked on the core team which developed the iBM personal computer.

The patents, the filing said, show a data processing recovery system for restoring a computer after corruption of the primary operating system, applications software, user data, or physical storage.

All the defendants, Xpoint alleges, use these systems. Xpoint further alleges that in 2002, Intel approached the company to license the Rapid Restore Pro or Rapid Restore Enterprise software systems, which use Xpoint "One Button Restore" tech.

The filing alleges that Intel and Xpoint got to a late stage discussion to license One Button Restore, but in the end the deal came to nothing.

Xpoint alleges that Intel used its knowledge of the patents to develop and sell infringing technology, and has made motherboards and chipsets using Farstone's Restore IT system and Acronis' True Image technology, which, it's claimed, also infringe the patents.

The filing also alleges HP knew of the technology while the other defendants have infringed the patents. X