Here's what to know to be part of the lawsuits against Intel
With the tech world still reeling from the revelations about the serious Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities to central processing units (CPUs), the first class-action lawsuits have been filed, just like clockwork.
SEE ALSO:Those huge CPU vulnerabilities, Meltdown and Spectre, explainedThe vulnerabilities affect a wide range of devices and products, from laptops to phones, from a number of companies -- but they disproportionately affect Intel chips. And it's Intel that's been hit hardest by the lawsuits filed so far.
The lawsuits
Late Thursday afternoon, Gizmodopublished a story that collected the first three class-action lawsuits brought against Intel in courts in California, Indiana, and Oregon.
While there are some small differences in each suit, all three make the same basic claim: consumers have suffered damages because they bought products that contained the defective Intel chips for years in good faith and the only solutions are either to buy a new processor (essentially, buy a new computer) or use patches that could slow down some products.
SEE ALSO:Apple on Meltdown and Spectre bugs: 'All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected'Since the vulnerabilities were exposed, Intel has pushed back a bit, saying they're hardly alone in producing affected chips, name-checking AMD and ARM, and argued that performance "for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time."
While additional lawsuits against Intel are possible given the sheer number of devices affected, we could see similar lawsuits against other companies as more becomes known about the breadth of the vulnerabilities and the chips involved.
Simplifying and consolidating
Chris Cantrell, an attorney at the San Diego-based firm Doyle APC, which is involved in the suit filed in California, told Mashable that it's likely a petition would be made to consolidate the multiple suits using multidistrict litigation.
In situations like this, where there are multiple lawsuits across multiple districts that share the same issues (such as the same defendant), a petition can be made to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The panel then decides whether or not the cases should be combined into a single suit and, if so, decide to which court the suit should be sent.
Not good.Credit: Kim Kulish/gettyThe appointed court then handles all the discovery, pretrial motions, and would oversee any settlement talks. And if no settlement is reached and a trial is necessary, it would be held in the selected court as long as the class is certified, according to Cantrell.
TL;DR, all of these similar cases can be combined into one big case to save everyone involved a lot of time, money, and resources because the legal system is slow enough already.
Being part of the suit
If you purchased one of the affected products and you believe you should be included in the suit, you don't have to do much at all because this is an "opt-out" suit, meaning you only have to take action if you don't want to be included.
Every effort will be made to contact those believed to be affected by the chips -- including, as noted in the lawsuit involving Cantrell's firm, "records of sales, warranty records, and other information kept by Defendant or its agents."
"We would certainly try to reach every consumer in the United States so they can determine whether they have or had one of these defective processors," Cantrell says. He notes that putting out public notices would likely also be part of the efforts.
"We would certainly try to reach every consumer in the United States ... "
If you never get a notice, though, and believe you should be part of the suit, you can try to join the class before a settlement is reached, but be prepared to show receipts -- literally -- if you want to collect.
If an award is made in favor of the plaintiffs (the consumers) via settlement or trial, the money (after numerous attorney and court fees, of course) is split evenly amongst the many (in this case, many many) consumers involved, though there would be a burden of proof to reap your portion.
"To be part of the lawsuit is the lesser burden," Cantrell explains. "To be part of the settlement, I'm sure there would be some requirements, whether that would be a declaration under penalty of perjury or whether there would be some type of paperwork needed -- a receipt, a credit card receipt, or something like that -- depends on the term of the settlement agreement."
So, if you think you should be eligible to be part of the lawsuit, keep your eyes peeled for the notices, either published on the web or arriving via email or even postcard, and sit back because this is gonna take a good, long while for the final verdict to be reached.
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