AMD has made a request for corporate documents to be preserved in its anti-trust suit against Intel, and a Delaware court has just agreed. On Friday, AMD asked the court to serve subpoenas for the preservation of documents in the possession of specified third parties. The aim is to use the documents as evidence in the litigation against Intel.

AMD sent notices to 32 computer companies, microprocessor distributors and computer retailers requesting that they suspend their normal document destruction and take steps to present evidence from being lost, according to an AMD filing with the court.

Of these, 14 companies have responded and nine of those indicated they would work with AMD to preserve documents, AMD said. The nine companies were Acer, Gateway, Lenovo, NEC, Rackable Systems, Sony and Sun. The others are distributor Tech Data and the retailer Circuit City Stores.

Best Buy Co. has agreed to comply with AMD's request "without limitation", while Dell and Hitachi acknowledged AMD's letters of request and promised to respond. CompUSA has acknowledged AMD's request.

Toshiba is the only company to have acknowledged receipt of AMD's notice and "refused to negotiate at all," according to the filing. Toshiba declined to comment.
So far, 18 companies have not responded. This includes firms ranging from HP and IBM to Dixons. AMD now believes that this court order will help to successfully preserve the relevant documents.