AMD issued a response to a recent report which states that liquid cooling components maker Asetek issued a cease-and-desist to the company, to stop sales of the Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card, which implements a closed-loop liquid-cooling solution made by Cooler Master. In its response, AMD argues that the jury in the Asetek vs. CMI (Cooler Master) case did not mention the cooling solution of the Radeon R9 Fury X specifically, as infringing Asetek-held patents. The statement reads:

"We are aware that Asetek has sued Cooler Master. While we defer to Cooler Master regarding the details of the litigation, we understand that the jury in that case did not find that the Cooler Master heat sink currently used with the Radeon Fury X infringed any of Asetek's patents."

While AMD is right in pointing out that the original judgement does not name the R9 Fury X, or its cooling solution as an infringing product; there's no word on whether AMD will stop sales of the card. From the looks of it, AMD has no plans to stop sales of its flagship graphics product, and appears to have convincing legal arguments up its sleeves to continue selling the card, in the near future.

Microsoft Corp. and ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (ASUS) on Thursday announced the expansion of an earlier patent licensing agreement between the companies. The deal includes a broad cross-license covering, for example, ASUS Android-based phones and tablets and Microsoft software, devices and services. It paves the way for closer integration between the two companies, including pre-installation by ASUS of Microsoft Office productivity services on ASUS Android smartphones and tablets. The agreement also facilitates technology sharing toward the development of new, innovative product solutions.

"This agreement delivers significant value for both companies. Beyond ensuring continued improvements to our products, it opens the door to the kind of collaboration between Microsoft and ASUS made possible only through mutual respect and alignment on intellectual property," said Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC. ASUS General Counsel Vincent Hong said, "This agreement will give us both a greater ability to innovate for our customers. We see it leading to broad partnership opportunities for future technologies and a strengthened relationship between our two companies as leaders of the technology industry."

In late 2014, Asetek won a patent infringement case against CMI USA, Inc. ("CMI") at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The jury unanimously ruled in favor of Asetek, and awarded damages based on a 14.5% royalty rate. In a post trial motion, CMI demanded a judgement as a matter of law and a new trial.

The court yesterday denied CMI's demands, and instead substantially followed Asetek's requests and issued a permanent injunction barring CMI and its parent Cooler Master from selling certain infringing products into the Unites States. Also, the judge awarded Asetek enhanced damages i.e., a 25.375% royalty rate, on CMI's revenues for sales of infringing products beginning January 1, 2015. It should be noted that the matter is appealable by CMI.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced that it has completed its acquisition of IBM's Microelectronics business. With the acquisition, GLOBALFOUNDRIES gains differentiated technologies to enhance its product offerings in key growth markets, from mobility and Internet of Things (IoT) to Big Data and high-performance computing. The deal strengthens the company's workforce, adding decades of experience and expertise in semiconductor development, device expertise, design, and manufacturing. And the addition of more than 16,000 patents and applications makes GLOBALFOUNDRIES the holder of one of the largest semiconductor patent portfolios in the world.

"Today we have significantly enhanced our technology development capabilities and reinforce our long-term commitment to investing in R&D for technology leadership," said Sanjay Jha, chief executive officer of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "We have added world-class technologists and differentiated technologies, such as RF and ASIC, to meet our customers' needs and accelerate our progress toward becoming a foundry powerhouse." Through the addition of some of the brightest and most innovative scientists and engineers in the semiconductor industry, GLOBALFOUNDRIES solidifies its path to advanced process technologies at 10 nm, 7 nm, and beyond.

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.

Microsoft Corp. and Canon Inc. on Wednesday broadened their strategic alliance with the announcement of a broad patent cross-licensing agreement. With this agreement, Microsoft and Canon gain licenses to each other's highly valued and growing patent portfolios.

"This collaborative approach with Canon allows us to deliver inventive technologies that benefit consumers around the world," said Nick Psyhogeos, general manager, associate general counsel, IP Licensing of the Innovation and Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft. "Microsoft believes cooperative licensing is an effective way to accelerate innovation while reducing patent disputes."

Asetek, the world's leading supplier of computer liquid cooling solutions, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has allowed a patent on the company's thermal interposer liquid cooling system designed for cooling graphic processing units (GPUs). Liquid cooling the GPU enables lower noise, lower temperatures, and enhanced performance over traditional air cooling.

"As seen in the recently announced AMD Radeon R9 295X2, the graphics cooling market is one that we see as having tremendous growth potential for our desktop business," said André Sloth Eriksen, Founder and CEO of Asetek. "We continue to see increasing interest from GPU and graphics card manufacturers due to increased power use and demands for lower acoustics. Given this interest, it is possible that the GPU cooling business could rival our CPU cooling business in the coming years."

Rambus Inc. today announced that it has signed a comprehensive patent license agreement with Qualcomm Global Trading Pte. Ltd., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated. The agreement provides Qualcomm Incorporated and its subsidiaries with access to innovative patented memory, interface, and security technologies from Rambus. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.

"This agreement highlights our ongoing commitment to providing access to valuable memory and security technologies to industry leaders," said Dr. Ron Black, president and chief executive officer at Rambus. "Engaging with Qualcomm with this agreement gives us an opportunity to collaborate with the broader industry to bring compelling solutions to the segment."

Microsoft Corp. and Dell announced a patent licensing agreement allowing the companies to share technology and build on each other's innovations. It is the continuation of a nearly 30-year business relationship between Microsoft and Dell to deliver world-class technologies to consumers.

"Our agreement with Dell shows what can be accomplished when companies share intellectual property," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of the Innovation and Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft. "We have been partnering with technology manufacturers and vendors for many years to craft licensing deals, instead of litigation strategies."

Rambus Inc., the innovative technology solutions company, and Nanya Technology Corporation, the industry leading pure-play consumer memory company, today announced they have signed a broad five-year patent license agreement. This agreement allows for the use of certain high-performance, low-power patented innovations developed by Rambus in Nanya DRAM products and enables future technology collaboration.

Under this agreement, Rambus and Nanya have settled all outstanding claims, providing Nanya with access to certain memory-related Rambus innovations through the second quarter of 2018. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Macronix International Co., Ltd. , a global leader providing non-volatile memory solutions, announced that it has filed a patent infringement law suit against Spansion LLC and Spansion Inc. in the United States for infringement of seven Macronix patents directed to numerous aspects of flash memory. Macronix has taken this step to address Spansion's rampant infringement of Macronix's patent rights.

The seven patents relate to manufacturing of flash memory chips, compact memory with serial interfaces, security of memory cells, and circuit designs for flash memory. The patents in suit represent only a small fraction of Macronix world-wide patent portfolio.

Rouchon Industries Inc., d/b/a/ Swiftech today announced the withdrawal from US sales of the H220 CPU cooling kit. On June 7 2013, Rouchon Industries Inc., d/b/a/ Swiftech received a letter from Asetek' s lawyers claiming that the H220 CPU cooler infringes on their US patents 8,240,362 (the '362 patent) and 8,245,764 (the '764 patent) and to cease selling, offering for sale and importing the H220 CPU cooler in the United States. Pending final disposition of this matter, Swiftech immediately placed a hold on shipments of the H220 CPU cooling kits into the USA.

On June 27, 2013 Swiftech's counsel responded to Asetek' s attorney by a letter stating that preliminarily, Swiftech does not believe that the H220 product infringes any valid claim of the '362 and '764 patents. Nonetheless, in an effort to avoid any unnecessary litigation Swiftech also asked whether Asetek would be willing to offer a nonexclusive license for the asserted patents. On July 12, 2013 Swiftech received a response from Asetek' s law firm stating that the company does not offer licenses.

Asetek, which manufactures closed-loop liquid cooling solutions that are re-branded by several companies, filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Cooler Master alleging infringement of multiple patents held by Asetek. Cooler Master's recently launched Seidon line of closed-loop liquid CPU coolers are points of contention for Asetek, as it claims the products infringe upon patent numbers 8,240,362 and 8,245,764, held by the company.

Seidon 120M and 240M may have been launched late January 2013, but had been pictured much earlier, in September. Ahead of its launch, Asetek claims it had contacted Cooler Master with a cease-and-desist order, but it claims the latter didn't respond satisfactorily, going ahead with the launch. The case (Civil Action No. 3:13-cv-00457-JSC) will now be heard by a US Court. Cooler Master's defense could stress on the point the essential design of a CPU liquid cooler hasn't changed for decades. Other liquid cooling makers, which aren't particularly as big as Asetek (which sells liquid cooling solutions to even the server and defense industries), will be closely following the case.

Storage and application processor maker Marvell Technology has been ordered by a Federal Jury in the US state of Pennsylvania to pay a local university $1.17 billion in damages for patent-infringement. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) developed and patented a technology that "increases the accuracy with which hard disk drive circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks," which Marvell has been found to be infringing. Why $1.17 billion? Because these chips are an indispensable component in modern mechanical hard disk drives, made by both Seagate and WD, among others.

If and when US District Court Judge Nora Barry Fischer agrees with the Jury ruling that Marvell's infringements of CMU's patents are "willful," the fine could triple, according to K&L Gates. The jury found that Marvell sold "billions" of chips carrying the University's technology. What makes this verdict important for the PC industry is that since Marvell's HDD components are widely incorporated in HDDs across various brands, should CMU seek a sales-ban, it could potentially affect HDD production the way last year's unfortunate floods in Thailand did.

Adapted from technology that GE researchers originally developed for commercial jet engines, GE (NYSE: GE) has announced a major technology breakthrough, called DCJ, which adapts this technology for the cooling of consumer electronics. DCJ will support the next generation of thinner, quieter and more powerful tablets, laptops and other electronic devices.

GE's DCJ (Dual Piezoelectric Cooling Jets), behave as a micro-fluidic bellows that provide high-velocity jets of air to cool electronic components. The turbulent air flow of the DCJ increases the heat transfer rate to more than ten times that of natural convection.

Microsoft Corp. and Hoeft & Wessel AG have signed a patent licensing agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for Hoeft & Wessel devices running the Android platform. Hoeft & Wessel manufactures handheld devices and terminals for the public transportation, logistics and retail industries in Europe. While the contents of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicate that Microsoft will receive royalties from Hoeft & Wessel.

"This agreement with Hoeft & Wessel is another example of how industry leaders address intellectual property," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of the Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft. "We are proud of the continued success of our licensing program in resolving IP issues surrounding the Android platform in a variety of industries."

Creative Technology Ltd today announced it has entered into an agreement with Intel Corporation for Intel to license certain technology and patents from ZiiLABS Inc. Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative, and acquire certain engineering resources and assets related to its UK subsidiary ZiiLABS Limited (formerly known as 3DLABS Limited).

The US$50 million deal includes US$20 million to Creative for the licensing of certain technologies to Intel relating to ZiiLABS' high performance GPU technology. The second part of the deal is US$30 million to Creative for the transfer of certain engineering resources and assets in the UK subsidiary to Intel. The UK subsidiary is a design entity engaged in, primarily on behalf of ZiiLABS Inc. Ltd, the development of various silicon solutions, including the ZMS chips for Creative. The transfer of engineering resources and assets will be through the divestment of the UK subsidiary by Creative.

AMD is consulting with JP Morgan Chase & Co., to explore options, that could pull it out of its grim financial situation. These could include a sale. The company is struggling to find itself a role in an industry that's increasingly focused on mobile, away from PCs. On hearing the news, the company stock surged 18 percent before closing for the day at 5 percent up, at $2.09, on the NYSE. Some of these options could include a sale of its portfolio of patents to raise cash. With the emergence of ARM SoC industry, AMD finds itself holding valuable IP that could fetch cash.

In a statement to Reuters, a company spokesperson said: "AMD's board and management believe that the strategy the company is currently pursuing to drive long-term growth by leveraging AMD's highly-differentiated technology assets is the right approach to enhance shareholder value. AMD is not actively pursuing a sale of the company or significant assets at this time." Some analysts believe that AMD will not be able to reverse its decline in time, given the rate at which it's laying off engineers, others add that it might be difficult to buy AMD as a whole, since it's considered to be a "legacy company."

HTC and Apple have reached a global settlement that includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and a ten-year license agreement. The license extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.

"HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation," said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC. "We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC," said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. "We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation."

Microsoft Corp. announced today that it signed patent licensing agreements for the use of the latest Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) with five companies, spanning industries including high-end camcorders, digital cameras and Android tablets.

The agreements cover Sharp Android tablets, Sigma and NextoDi high-end cameras and accessories, and Black Magic and Atomos Global broadcast-quality video-recording devices.

Apple finally got around to complying with a recent judgement by a UK court, which told it to make a statement asserting that Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9, and Tab 7.7 do not violate design patents claimed by Apple. In addition to linking to the court order, the statement claims that the judgement is in effect throughout the European Union, and was upheld by the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, on October 18, 2012. The judgement is expected to set a significant precedent in favor of Samsung in other parts of the world where the two companies are locked in similar legal disputes.

A British court ruled that Samsung Galaxy Tab did not pose a copyright infringement of Apple iPad. Apple and Samsung are locked in design patent infringement lawsuits around the world, with the UK being an important market for both. In addition to its ruling, the court told Apple to issue a public apology to Samsung and its customers in advertisements, with a font size no smaller than Arial 14. The court of appeal upheld its judgement that and Samsung did not infringe Apple's design.

Intellectual Ventures (IV) announced today that it has reached settlement agreements with SK hynix Inc. and Elpida Memory, Inc. and resolved all pending patent infringement litigation with both companies.

"Intellectual Ventures has reached amicable settlements with both SK hynix and Elpida in the three patent infringement actions we filed against the companies over the past two years," said Melissa Finocchio, vice president and chief litigation counsel for Intellectual Ventures. "IV has built a world-class portfolio of semiconductor patents, and our preference is to sign license agreements and form productive, long-standing relationships with innovative companies rather than to litigate."

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies, today announced that the judge for the Northern District of California (NDCA) has issued his decision in the matter with SK Hynix. The Honorable Ronald M. Whyte has found that the Rambus patents in this case are valid and infringed by SK Hynix and Rambus is entitled to receive royalty payments for past infringement based on reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) rates.

"This is a positive result as it is consistent with what we've been seeking all along - reasonable compensation for the use of our patented inventions," said Thomas Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. "We appreciate the Court's extensive efforts in working through years of complex arguments. While this decision does not provide SK Hynix with a going-forward license, we are hopeful it will lead to putting this matter behind us completely and allow us to reach reasonable agreements."

Leading mainboard and graphics card maker MSI has just announced the release of the N680GTX Lightning, the new king of the graphics card world equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 GPU. The N680GTX Lightning utilizes proprietary Unlocked Digital Power architecture to unleash the full performance of the graphics card without any extra modifications. The innovative patented GPU Reactor power supply back plate also reduces power supply noise and improves overclocking stability. the N680GTX Lightning is kept cool by the Twin Frozr IV cooling solution with Dust Removal technology, dual temperature-controlled fan setup and SuperPipe.