The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the patenting and licensing arm of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has sued the Intel Corporation, asserting that a popular computer processing chip the company sells infringes a 1998 patent issued to four university professors.

The foundation says that Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company, has been aware of the invention for several years and uses it in the Intel Core2 Duo processor, but has refused to enter into licensing discussions.

Intel has aggressively marketed the benefits of the invention as a feature of its Core2 technology, said officials of the foundation, known as WARF, in a news release.

In its lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Madison, Wis., WARF maintains that the professors’ invention has been recognized as a “major milestone in the field of computer microprocessing” and has been cited in numerous scholarly articles and a “gold-standard textbook on computer architecture.”

Intel, which says in its promotional materials that the processor “breaks new ground,” said it was evaluating the lawsuit.

“We dispute their claims, and we certainly intend to conduct a vigorous defense,” a spokesman, Chuck Mulloy, told the Associated Press.

WARF, which is known as a vigorous defender of its intellectual property, did not specify the amount of damages it was seeking. —Goldie Blumenstyk