NVIDIA Files Complaints Against Samsung and Qualcomm for Patent Infringement

[Cristian_25H]

NVIDIA today announced that it has filed complaints against Samsung and Qualcomm at the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleging that the companies are both infringing NVIDIA GPU patents covering technology including programmable shading, unified shaders and multithreaded parallel processing.

The identified Samsung products include the Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S4 mobile phones; and the Galaxy Tab S, Galaxy Note Pro and Galaxy Tab 2 computer tablets. Most of these devices incorporate Qualcomm mobile processors -- including the Snapdragon S4, 400, 600, 800, 801 and 805. Others are powered by Samsung Exynos mobile chips, which incorporate ARM's Mali and Imagination Technologies' PowerVR GPU cores.



NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said: "As the world leader in visual computing, NVIDIA has invented technologies that are vital to mobile computing. We have the richest portfolio of computer graphics IP in the world, with 7,000 patents granted and pending, produced by the industry's best graphics engineers and backed by more than $9 billion in R&D.

"Our patented GPU inventions provide significant value to mobile devices. Samsung and Qualcomm have chosen to use these in their products without a license from us. We are asking the courts to determine infringement of NVIDIA's GPU patents by all graphics architectures used in Samsung's mobile products and to establish their licensing value."

A pioneer in computer graphics, NVIDIA invented the GPU. The graphics processing unit enables computers to generate and display images. It brings to life the beautiful graphics that shape how people enjoy their mobile devices and is fundamental to the rise of mobile computing. NVIDIA GPUs are some of the most complex processors ever created, requiring over a thousand engineering-years to create and containing more than 7 billion transistors.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[the54thvoid]

I don't like patent trolling but somehow I feel torn on this one. If NV are asking for a fee for use of it's IP, then that's fair enough. Is it?

I mean, if Samsung and Qualcomm are using NV patents without licence it should be clear cut. It's not as if it's based on concepts is it? Like Apple suing for having a feature loosely described in it's patent cases.

 

[Cheeseball]

They should be complaining about Qualcomm only since they are the ones who are making the SoC with the GPUs in question (Adreno, which is basically ATI/AMD's Radeon [anagram!] HD 5000 series on mobile).

 

[Kaotik]

They should be complaining about Qualcomm only since they are the ones who are making the SoC with the GPUs in question (Adreno, which is basically ATI/AMD's Radeon [anagram!] HD 5000 series on mobile).

Adreno is nothing like Radeon HD -series.
First Adreno, Adreno 200, was also known as AMD Z430. Most similar AMD/ATI GPU to that was Xenos in XB360, but even that isn't that close. Sure, it's unified shaders etc, but that's about it.
Since Adreno 200, all Adrenos have been developed in-house by Qualcomm (by ex-AMD/ATI/BitBoys people who they aquired with the Imageon tech etc) and every iteration has pushed them further and further away from Z430 roots

 

[HumanSmoke]

I don't like patent trolling but somehow I feel torn on this one. If NV are asking for a fee for use of it's IP, then that's fair enough. Is it?
I mean, if Samsung and Qualcomm are using NV patents without licence it should be clear cut. It's not as if it's based on concepts is it? Like Apple suing for having a feature loosely described in it's patent cases.

If this were Apple, they'd be screaming for an injunction to stop Samsung's sales.
EDIT: Seems Nvidia are too!

 

[Prima.Vera]

Another patent troll

 

[newtekie1]

I don't see nVidia being a patent troll here at all. They aren't throwing around injunctions to stop Samsung/Qualcomm from selling their products. They aren't asking for insane amounts of money. What they are doing is asking the courts to decide if the patents are being infringed and if so having the courts decide proper licencing fees. This is exactly how patents should work and how patent disputes should be handled.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Another patent troll

The company don't have a record of initiating frivolous or frequent litigation. Their last suit was against Intel. The previous suits of note (against SGI and 3Dfx) would have resulted in judgements in their favour - both SGI and 3Dfx transferred IP in lieu of damages - in SGI's case, their whole pro graphics program which launched Nvidia's Quadro brand.

 

[Maban]

They aren't throwing around injunctions to stop Samsung/Qualcomm from selling their products.

"We are asking the ITC to block shipments of Samsung Galaxy mobile phones and tablets containing Qualcomm’s Adreno, ARM’s Mali or Imagination’s PowerVR graphics architectures." http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/04/nvidia-launches-patent-suits/

For those wondering the patents in question are:
http://www.google.com/patents/US6198488
http://www.google.com/patents/US6992667
http://www.google.com/patents/US7038685
http://www.google.com/patents/US7015913
http://www.google.com/patents/US6697063
http://www.google.com/patents/US7209140
http://www.google.com/patents/US6690372

"In particular, the Accused Products infringe claims 1, 19 and 20 of the ʼ488 Patent; claims 1-29 of the ʼ667 Patent; claims 1-5, 7-19, 21-23, 25-30, 34-36, 38, 41-43 of the ʼ685 Patent; claims 5-8, 10, 12-20 and 24-27 of the ʼ913 Patent; claims 7, 8, 11-13, 16-21, 23, 24, 28 and 29 of the ʼ063 Patent; claims 1-7, 8-10, 12 and 14 of the ʼ140 Patent; and claims 1-6, 9-16 and 19-25 of the ʼ372 Patent"
http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/imagelibrary/downloadmedia.ashx?MediaDetailsID=2996&SizeId=-1&SizeID=-1

 

[Batou1986]

Our products aren't selling well
Quick lets sue the competition

 

[Sony Xperia S]

Everyone should and will be happy once nvidia goes bankrupt.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Our products aren't selling well Quick lets sue the competition

Everyone should and will be happy once nvidia goes bankrupt.

You guys keep backing the wrong horse, and the endless tears are hilarious.

 

[Steevo]

You guys keep backing the wrong horse, and the endless tears are hilarious.

In this one case Nvidia is sucking hind teat on mobile, their last chips were flops, and the new one is barely becoming available and already outclassed by competition, so yeah I see this as a BS move to try and hold up the competition and gain market foothold, not sure it will work, since Nvidia is like #1589 in companies VS Samsung at a meager #22.

 

[XL-R8R]

I don't see nVidia being a patent troll here at all. They aren't throwing around injunctions to stop Samsung/Qualcomm from selling their products. They aren't asking for insane amounts of money. What they are doing is asking the courts to decide if the patents are being infringed and if so having the courts decide proper licencing fees. This is exactly how patents should work and how patent disputes should be handled.

I think this is one of the better* comments in here.


Theres a lot of fans, trolls and flame jugglers to be found already.... this thread may be cause for some special mod attention in the future lol



*special mention and thanks for @the54thvoid for being on point and level headed and @Maban for researching, in-depth, what the patents/IP was all about.

 

[Patriot]

Lol they just asked the ITC to stop shipments of all phones without Tegra cpu...
Sure that sounds reasonable.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Lol they just asked the ITC to stop shipments of all phones without Tegra cpu...
Sure that sounds reasonable.

And you think Samsung represents all PowerVR phone and tablet sales? Did you forget about all the other PowerVR graphics core SoC users like Apple ? like MediaTek? like Intel ? like Allwinner? like Texas Instruments ? like Amazon ? like HTC ? like Sony? like Microsoft/Nokia ? like Google/Motorola ? like a pretty long list of other vendors?
At least four of the members of that list (and probably more if I could be arsed to check) have pretty extensive licensing agreements with Nvidia - maybe that's why they aren't listed in the complaint

 

[Patriot]

And you think Samsung represents all PowerVR phone and tablet sales? Did you forget about all the other PowerVR graphics core SoC users like Apple ? like MediaTek? like Intel ? like Allwinner? like Texas Instruments ? like Amazon ? like HTC ? like Sony? like Microsoft/Nokia ? like Google/Motorola ? like a pretty long list of other vendors?
At least four of the members of that list (and probably more if I could be arsed to check) have pretty extensive licensing agreements with Nvidia - maybe that's why they aren't listed in the complaint

Read that statement wrong...
Carried that And .... Samsung phones and phones with those components...
They might have agreements with the others... but samsung is the big fish... if they get an agreement out of them they can settle out of court with the smaller fishes.
If they attack all at once they seem more the patent troll.

 

[dwade]

What isn't Samsung stealing anyways. They should offer their services to other companies.

 

[Fluffmeister]

In this one case Nvidia is sucking hind teat on mobile, their last chips were flops, and the new one is barely becoming available and already outclassed by competition, so yeah I see this as a BS move to try and hold up the competition and gain market foothold, not sure it will work, since Nvidia is like #1589 in companies VS Samsung at a meager #22.

That's all just swell, but none of it changes the fact the girls I responded too keep backing the wrong horse.

 

[Steevo]

And you think Samsung represents all PowerVR phone and tablet sales? Did you forget about all the other PowerVR graphics core SoC users like Apple ? like MediaTek? like Intel ? like Allwinner? like Texas Instruments ? like Amazon ? like HTC ? like Sony? like Microsoft/Nokia ? like Google/Motorola ? like a pretty long list of other vendors?
At least four of the members of that list (and probably more if I could be arsed to check) have pretty extensive licensing agreements with Nvidia - maybe that's why they aren't listed in the complaint

http://www.techpowerup.com/185891/nvidia-to-license-its-gpu-ip-la-arm-and-powervr.html


Nvidia is going after end users, when Imagination Technologies is the company Apple, Samsung, and others are licensing the patents from, and if infringement is happening Imagination should be held up here, so again, Nvidia is butthurt over the lack of adoption of their mobile chips, and want to try and force their way into the market.

 

[Batou1986]

http://www.techpowerup.com/185891/nvidia-to-license-its-gpu-ip-la-arm-and-powervr.html


Nvidia is going after end users, when Imagination Technologies is the company Apple, Samsung, and others are licensing the patents from, and if infringement is happening Imagination should be held up here, so again, Nvidia is butthurt over the lack of adoption of their mobile chips, and want to try and force their way into the market.

This is exactly my point if a SoC maker is infringing you go after them.

Remember when companies used to make something better to beat their competition instead of abusing the clueless draconian patent system.

 

[The Von Matrices]

Remember when companies used to make something better to beat their competition instead of abusing the clueless draconian patent system.

Right, because if someone copies your implementation of a technology thus eliminating your chance to recoup the money you invested in R&D, the best option is for you to go bankrupt attempting to develop an even better technology that will also be copied and thus never recoup its R&D costs.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Nvidia is going after end users, when Imagination Technologies is the company Apple, Samsung, and others are licensing the patents from, and if infringement is happening Imagination should be held up here, so again, Nvidia is butthurt over the lack of adoption of their mobile chips, and want to try and force their way into the market.

That almost makes sense in isolation, except if you'll note that Mali is ARM not Imagination Tech. If this affects Imagination as the IP license originator, then the same must be true for ARM Holding's since Mali is their design. The actual case seems to be semi-custom architectural licensing for modification since ARM's other Mali's variants that aren't Samsung and licensed to the companies I noted (MediaTek, Rockchip, Allwinner etc.) aren't covered in the suit.

Right, because if someone copies your implementation of a technology thus eliminating your chance to recoup the money you invested in R&D, the best option is for you to go bankrupt attempting to develop an even better technology that also be copied and thus never recoup its R&D costs.

The WHOLE Japanese electronics industry is based upon the Japanese Government's refusal to recognise U.S. and International patents and the whole protectionism racket that was JECC. Companies like T.I. and Motorola got reamed for years thanks to government sanctioned IP theft.

 

[Batou1986]

Right, because if someone copies your implementation of a technology thus eliminating your chance to recoup the money you invested in R&D, the best option is for you to go bankrupt attempting to develop an even better technology that will also be copied and thus never recoup its R&D costs.

The problem isn't the idea of patents , Its the fact that the patent office has no understanding of the technology they are issuing patents for, so a lot of these tech patents should have never been issued in the first place.

Example, Slide to unlock.

I'm not saying that's the case here but it is all too common.

 

[newtekie1]

"We are asking the ITC to block shipments of Samsung Galaxy mobile phones and tablets containing Qualcomm’s Adreno, ARM’s Mali or Imagination’s PowerVR graphics architectures." http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/04/nvidia-launches-patent-suits/

I'm not saying they aren't trying to block the sales until the suit is settled, that is standard practice. My point was they aren't throwing multiple injunctions around, like a traditional patent troll. Normally a patent troll files sales injunctions in a shotgun pattern, in hopes that at least one will get through.