Sony in Trouble for Cell Patent Infringement

[Jimmy 2004]

Many people will be familiar with Sony's Cell Broadband Engine, the processor which powers the company's famous PS3 games console. However, a 15-year-old patent for "synchronized parallel processing with shared memory" could spell trouble for the firm if the Parallel Processing Corporation is victorious in a recent lawsuit against Sony. The Parallel Processing Corporation claims that Sony's Cell processor infringes the patent and has caused "irreparable harm and monetary damage" - the patent was originally granted to a company called International Parallel Machines on 8th October 1991, but the Parallel Processing Corporation now claims to be the "exclusive licensee" for it. If successful, this has the potential to be much more serious than the well known rumble lawsuit, considering that the Cell processor isn't something that can be easily changed for the PS3. Sony is yet to give a statement about this issue, instead saying doesn't comment on pending litigation.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[L|NK|N]

Does this include IBM and Toshiba as well? You have to love how people are so sue happy. Maybe I should get a patent for some futuristic technology, and in 20 years when someone else makes it I can sue them for billions. ROFL at the industry.

 

[Atech]

What - a - load - of - bollocks.

So, what next, are they going after AMD, Cray, IBM, Intel, Sun Microsystems?

Cookies for the first person to Google five instances of prior art.

 

[jocksteeluk]

Id like to feel sorry for sony on this one but the fact is the have been charging Europeans $800 for the ps3 so i find it difficult to do so, not only have Sony done he research and design wrong for the Ps3 (no need for blu-ray) but also the marketing (way too expensive for the target audience) and now it turns out yet another patent infringement, it wouldn't surprise me if sony dont make profit from the ps3 for a few years after this lawsuit.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

wasnt it Motorola or some highly unheard of company that came up with the CELL CPU??? I swear i read the moto came up with it or they had been using it

 

[Beertintedgoggles]

Cookies for the first person to Google five instances of prior art.

You don't even need five, just one to invalidate the patent.

 

[anticlutch]

I hope the people trying to sue Sony fail and go bankrupt (the same goes for all the other small companies mysteriously showing up with 'exclusive patents' after someone else made the technology popular).

 

[ktr]

wasnt it Motorola or some highly unheard of company that came up with the CELL CPU??? I swear i read the moto came up with it or they had been using it

no, Motorola is the popularly known in making (also including IBM and apple, known as the AIM alliance) the powerpc cpus.

the cell also uses the same powerpc architecture (therefore it can run linux), but the cell is made from Sony, toshiba, and IBM (known as the STI alliance).

 

[WarEagleAU]

Im sure all three companies did their research while developing this. I find it hard to believe folks spend billions and lots of time designing something, only to get sued for it. retards.

 

[cjoyce1980]

currently sony have stolen ideas for there online services from microsoft and nintendo, it wouldn't surprise me if the whole concept for the PS3 plagiarised.

 

[Atech]

You don't even need five, just one to invalidate the patent.

Maybe this was an aside directed not at me but those reading my comment, but I'll elaborate:
Finding one piece of prior art would be far too easy to be worthy of a proverbial cookie.