News - Nvidia sues Qualcomm and Samsung over graphics patents

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Nvidia wants sales of the latest Samsung Galaxy devices blocked.

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Read more.

If you can't beat'em, sue'em...

I'd almost say nVidia has taken a page out of Apple's playbook, but that would be unkind ...to nVidia.

Unlike a lot of recent lawsuits, fair play to Nvidia IMO. Assuming the patents are valid etc., they are pretty fundamental and deserve recognition. As I see it (and the article reads), someone should be paying a license fee, yet neither the chipmaker nor device maker think it should be them. If Samsung has refused a license offer themselves and knowingly used chips that weren't licensed ~(this having gone on for a while now), arguably it is still their responsibility, even if it is the chipmaker who should have licensed the tech in the beginning.

I'm less inclined to get angry at Nvidia for precipitating a lawsuit like this if it's really it's first, especially if it's been in discussions with qualcomm and samsung for a couple of years already as well to try to resolve the matter.

However, I can't quite see the logic in going after samsung if the problem lies in qualcomm's house, as it would appear to at first glance here...

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Originally Posted by Roobubba

I'm less inclined to get angry at Nvidia for precipitating a lawsuit like this if it's really it's first, especially if it's been in discussions with qualcomm and samsung for a couple of years already as well to try to resolve the matter.

However, I can't quite see the logic in going after samsung if the problem lies in qualcomm's house, as it would appear to at first glance here...

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Qualcomm made the chips, so they are the patent infringers. Samsung probably bought all those chips and reached agreements on them in good faith (ie "Qualcomm are huge and make these chips for everyone, so they're legit"). It's not up to the purchasers to control the patents of their suppliers.

What really troubles me is nVidia's desire to block ALL recent Samsung devices - even ones using ARM's own Mali design. That's infeasible at best, and downright shady.

They'd stand a much better chance, and spend far less money on legal fees, just pursuing Qualcomm.

These are the patents BTW:

https://www.google.com/patents/US6198488
https://www.google.com/patents/US6992667
https://www.google.com/patents/US7038685
https://www.google.com/patents/US7015913
https://www.google.com/patents/US6697063
https://www.google.com/patents/US7209140
https://www.google.com/patents/US6690372

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Originally Posted by azrael-

If you can't beat'em, sue'em...

I'd almost say nVidia has taken a page out of Apple's playbook, but that would be unkind ...to nVidia.

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Do you think Apple will sue Nvidia for taking similar action to them...?

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Originally Posted by Roobubba

However, I can't quite see the logic in going after samsung if the problem lies in qualcomm's house, as it would appear to at first glance here...

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Money. Qualcomm will probably only net Nvidia a company and the headache of sacking everyone once all the assets are assessed. But if you just want billions of dollars buckshee, then Samsung is the company to go after.

This is the most interesting "infringement"

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Nvidia's foundational invention, the GPU, which puts onto a single chip all the functions necessary to process graphics and light up screens

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Nvidia.
Does the screen on your phone light up when switch on?

Phone company.
Err yes

Nvidia.
We invented that! How dare you have a phone that lights up without our permission. That will be 1 billion dollars.

Mixed opinions on this. NVidia have probably got a point going after Samsung if they'd previously tried to persuade Samsung to "lean on" Qualcomm to license. That's assuming that the patents are valid of course, but that's up to the courts to decide.

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Nvidia claims that at least seven of its patents have been infringed, including the following:

1. Nvidia's foundational invention, the GPU, which puts onto a single chip all the functions necessary to process graphics and light up screens
2. It's invention of programmable shading, which allows non-experts to program sophisticated graphics
3. The invention of unified shaders, which allow every processing unit in the GPU to be used for different purposes
4. The invention of multithreaded parallel processing in GPUs, which enables processing to occur concurrently on separate threads while accessing the same memory and other resources.

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NVidia invented the GPU, since when? Or are they trying to claim this by inheritance of old patents. That said, whatever happened to the limitations on the length of patents. I remember buying graphics cards in the early 90's so any patent on graphics processors must be pretty much spent.

#2 is a total crock since I remember programming - from the setup/command line - old Tektronix 4120 series 3D terminals and changing the shading models, lighting, etc in the period 1984-1994 most of which predates NVidia.

#4 I'm banging my head over, as it sounds like the usual USPTO "utterly stupid patent" gaffe. How is this multithread-on-GPU noticably different from multithread-on-cpu stuff done by folks like Cray?

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Some suspect that Qualcomm might be in for a long battle, as its chips are found in a large number of devices beyond Samsung branded mobiles and tablets.

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If that means the Snapdragon 800 series then NVidia is in for a windfall, since most of the current leading edge smartphones use it. Being very cynical maybe this is part of the reason for the aggression on NVidia's part - to persuade some manufacturers to look at Tegra instead.

I was seriously thinking about buying an NVidia Shield this weekend, but since NVidia seem to be taking a leaf from Apple, I'm going to hold off.

I'm pretty sure that Nvidia leaning on Samsung, to force them to lean on Qualcomm would be seen as punitive somewhere along the line. But punitive seems to be what Nvidia is going for here.

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Originally Posted by jigger

I'm pretty sure that Nvidia leaning on Samsung, to force them to lean on Qualcomm would be seen as punitive somewhere along the line. But punitive seems to be what Nvidia is going for here.

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Question (IANAL - just curious if anybody knows) - If Samsung knowingly bought unlicensed chips, does that make them potentially liable in a way that wouldn't apply if they had not known. The responsibility may have been Qualcomms, but Samsung must have known they were unlicensed for at least the last few years, as Nvidia was talking to them about it.

If it doesn't, what's to stop an unscrupulous business entity from setting up a new company to have the chips fabbed by a third party, skip the license fees, sell them to the big company (the equivalent of Samsung here) and then just go out of business, with minimal assets etc, before any money could be recovered by the patent holder? The whole thing could be rinse/repeat for every model of phone, and the original inventor or patent holder couldn't actually chase the company that profited from the transgression.

First time initiating a lawsuit in 21 years? Eh? What about 3Dfx, who they sued out of business over patent infringement in 2000?

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Originally Posted by Jowsey

Do you think Apple will sue Nvidia for taking similar action to them...?

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Who knows... I certainly wouldn't put it past them... :p

To expand on my earlier, slightly glib statement of "if you can't beat'em, sue'em" as some have already correctly pointed out nVidia's Tegra SoCs aren't exactly flying off the shelf. That must irk Jen-Hsun Huang immensely, so something clearly had to be done. Litigation seems to be the tool of choice for throwing a spanner into the works of your competitors, if only temporarily.

And why go only after Samsung and not any of the other mobile phone/tablet manufacturers using Qualcomm's SoCs. Last I checked the Snapdragon series is the single most popular mobile SoC.

This whole situation smells fishy to me...

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Originally Posted by azrael-

And why go only after Samsung and not any of the other mobile phone/tablet manufacturers using Qualcomm's SoCs. Last I checked the Snapdragon series is the single most popular mobile SoC.

This whole situation smells fishy to me...

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Never mind other Qualcomm customers. From the sound of this, Nvidia are claiming all three SoC GPUs (Imagination's PowerVR, Qualcomm's Adreno and ARM's Mali) infringe on their patents.

So that implies they could go after Apple (PowerVR) and ARM too. Now, going after ARM would be crazy (licence their CPU designs but sue them for the GPUs?) and going Apple should guarantee that Apple will never use GeForce again (but then I though Nvidia's well known solder-defects in their bumbgate days would have meant that Apple would never use their products again).

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Originally Posted by Tpyo

Question (IANAL - just curious if anybody knows) - If Samsung knowingly bought unlicensed chips, does that make them potentially liable in a way that wouldn't apply if they had not known. The responsibility may have been Qualcomms, but Samsung must have known they were unlicensed for at least the last few years, as Nvidia was talking to them about it.

If it doesn't, what's to stop an unscrupulous business entity from setting up a new company to have the chips fabbed by a third party, skip the license fees, sell them to the big company (the equivalent of Samsung here) and then just go out of business, with minimal assets etc, before any money could be recovered by the patent holder? The whole thing could be rinse/repeat for every model of phone, and the original inventor or patent holder couldn't actually chase the company that profited from the transgression.

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This is not about ARM ripping off Nvidia in any way. I'm sure ARM will have built and designed the chips from the ground up all by themselves. I'm pretty sure Nvidia didn't invent the GPU anyway.

As far as I can tell Nvidia just patented three letters and are using stupid US law to arm twist Samsung into selling Tegra.

Nvidia, The way it's meant to be sued.