John Moussouris, one Silicon Valley tough guy

Here’s a noteworthy story by the NYT’s John Markoff about a physicist, John Moussouris, who has forced Intel to settle with him over a patent dispute with his company MicroUnity. The story suggests this guy never gives up. Back in 1996, even his own investors wanted to force his company into bankruptcy. He fought to keep control, prevailed and sold it to a Malaysian chip company instead.

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 19 – Intel’s agreement to pay $300 million to settle a patent dispute with a tiny chip design company is a vindication for a Silicon Valley technologist who was once considered one of the region’s visionaries, then vanished from the scene.

The technologist is John Moussouris, a 55-year-old physicist and computer designer, who in 1988 formed a company called MicroUnity as an early effort to bring about a convergence of computing and conventional audio and video media…