Monday, October 12th 2015
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NVIDIA Loses Patent Infringement Claim Lawsuit to Samsung
The United States Federal Trade Commission (US-FTC) has found that Samsung Electronics did not infringe upon patents held by NVIDIA. In a ruling made by Judge Thomas Pender on Friday (09/10), it's held that Samsung did not infringe two out of three NVIDIA-claimed patents, it did infringe upon a third one, but that patent is invalid because it's not a new invention compared to previously known patents.
Samsung manufactures the Exynos brand ARM SoCs for its own smartphones, which embed a graphics core that NVIDIA claims is based on patent infringing technology. NVIDIA, which claims that it invented the first GPU and released it in 1999, accused Samsung and Qualcomm of using its patents on graphics chip technology without permission. The company claims that both Samsung Exynos and Qualcomm Snapdragon (which make up a majority of Android device chips), breach its IPR. Its claims don't seem to hold water with the US-FTC. "We remain confident in our case," commented NVIDIA spokesperson Robert Sherbin to Reuters. The ruling will be reviewed by the full bench of the commission in February 2016.
Source:
Reuters
Samsung manufactures the Exynos brand ARM SoCs for its own smartphones, which embed a graphics core that NVIDIA claims is based on patent infringing technology. NVIDIA, which claims that it invented the first GPU and released it in 1999, accused Samsung and Qualcomm of using its patents on graphics chip technology without permission. The company claims that both Samsung Exynos and Qualcomm Snapdragon (which make up a majority of Android device chips), breach its IPR. Its claims don't seem to hold water with the US-FTC. "We remain confident in our case," commented NVIDIA spokesperson Robert Sherbin to Reuters. The ruling will be reviewed by the full bench of the commission in February 2016.
37 Comments on NVIDIA Loses Patent Infringement Claim Lawsuit to Samsung
RAMBus is so hated because unlike NVIDIA, they don't really invent anything new, they just troll others with patents. That's their one and only mission. That's why no one likes them.
I love it when patent trolls get squished.
hilarious
NOTICE OF INITIAL DETERMINATION ON VIOLATION OF SECTION 337
Admimstrative Law Judge Thomas B. Pender
(October 9, 2015)
U.S. Patent No. 6,690,372 Shadow mapping goes all the way back to Lance Williams in 1978, 22 years before NVIDIA patented it. Should not have been granted; NVIDIA can not claim it as theirs. Frivolous.
U.S. Patent No. 7,038,685 This one, as the court ruled, has some legitimacy. It's basically about a multithreaded graphics processor but the court has to ask itself if that is the natural progression of technology or did Samsung steal NVIDIA's design. The former is clearly more plausible; NVIDIA has no claim against Samsung.
I can't see a court ruling any differently. Two of the patents should have never been filed; enforcing the third would require all GPU manufacturers to pay license dues to NVIDIA which NVIDIA doesn't really deserve in the first place.
ATI dates back to 1987 (Mach8 released 1990) where NVIDIA dates back to 1993 (NV1 released 1995).
patent trolling for dominance just makes companies look dumb, *cough* rambus *cough*
extra latencyI guess you pay royalties to Nvidia.VR j/k
Transform and lighting was handled by the CPU via software prior to the GeForce 256 (Direct3D 6 and down). S3 Savage 2000 was independently developed and released the same year and it supports hardware T&L as well (just not via Direct3D 7). DirectX 7 shipped with Windows 2000. It was the natural progression of hardware graphics acceleration.