When you can't sell your hardware on its own merits...

[FoxEye]

Remember even if Nvidia never win, or pull out of the court case, big businesses with deep pockets can just bankrupt you in court. The american legal system in particular is utterly insane. I can't remember in which situations the loser is liable for the legal costs of the other side. I think that is one of the bigger problems with the US and maybe it's the euro area where when you patent troll and lose you pay the other guys court costs where as in America a company can win the case but lose millions upon millions in legal fee's making it cheaper to settle.

That's exactly how Creative killed Aureal. The B-stewards. It amazes me how the most advanced country on Earth can have such a broken legal system wrt patents.

In Aureal's case, not only were they not infringing Creatives "patents", but when Aureal folded Creative bought all their tech which was many years ahead of Creative in some areas. Bought it cheap too.

 

[humbug]

Funny how that article seems to have a completely different take on the whole thing.

Mentioning that some of the patents stem back from a company that 3DFX bought and in turn was bought by Nvidia.
The fact that Nvidia has been trying to get Samsung and Qualcomm to sort out a licensing deal for the last two years, so this is not really out of the blue.
The fact that Nvidia sued Intel for a similar use of its patents and Intel settled out of court 3 years ago.

On the whole the Anandtech article seems much more pro Nvidia rather than the Reuters article is very anti Nvidia.

Of course there is a lot more going on here than any one of us can possible hope to understand and as these two articles show there are many ways to report the news that show it to be a good or bad thing.

If you look at Anad's source its directly from Nvidia http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/04/nvidia-launches-patent-suits/

I do agree with the article in that this will go on for years.
If it effects the GPU industry as a whole, as they say it might, then i hope they all team up.

Starting an argument of who did what tech and who owes who what for it i think is an extremely messy and tangled thing to get into.
They all cross licence to each other, half the time they don't even care whose is what because its so difficult to disentangle it, so they just work together, "i give you this, you give me that"
I'm surprised anyone of them would break from those convenience agreements because they weren't actually being paid for something they stake a claim of ownership.
They did it because they want Samsung or someone to give in and give them money.
IMO, i hope that never happens, i hope they all gang up on that one with counter arguments and counter claims, have it going round and round and round in courts for years and years.

I don't think its good for the industry for one to win a claim of ownership for a piece of technology so interwoven into everyone products its impossible to untangle it. its one individual with control over everything. someone doing this with that aim needs to be run into bankruptcy going round the legal system.

 

[drunkenmaster]

That's exactly how Creative killed Aureal. The B-stewards. It amazes me how the most advanced country on Earth can have such a broken legal system wrt patents.

In Aureal's case, not only were they not infringing Creatives "patents", but when Aureal folded Creative bought all their tech which was many years ahead of Creative in some areas. Bought it cheap too.

Yup, the law is a joke, it has and likely will continue to favour those with more cash on hand.

Intel's pay out to nvidia was well, it was a much much smaller issue than the Intel illegally being anti competitive to AMD, but Nvidia got 2-3 times as much, because AMD couldn't afford to keep going in the case(well really the appeals over and over before getting any payment) while Nvidia could be as ruddy minded as they wanted and as such Intel just got it over with.

Then there is also the problem of somewhat inherent bias, Apple won cases against Samsung they should never, ever have won, some were appealed successful, and as time goes on more of Apple's stupid patent trolling cases are being thrown out. But there was a kind of "Apple are big, and successful so surely they are right" from some idiot judges out there. Then there is the even worse thing, judges being elected, there are a LOT of bent judges in america, some brilliant ones also. Most judges in the highest courts are political puppets, they are liberals or conservatives and expected to tend to vote a particular way(not entire wrong, though in some cases they will be just stubborn and flat out wrong but voting along political lines).

 

[layte]

...

Your comparison to Apple's crazy design patents is a text book example of a straw man. None of us have any idea as to the basis of these patents, or the exact reasons as to why Nividia have taken this route. Yet as always you are first out of the block, attempting to look as if you have details knowledge of the matter at hand, with a strategy of trying to overwhelm with volume of words.

I'd care to guess that a multi billion dollar corporation, who have over 20 years of experience creating and bringing to market graphics technology, is not a patent troll, attempting to sue an even larger corporation without a valid reason.

Nvidia bought 3dFX's IP a very long time ago, and I'd imagine have integrated and used it in many of their products since. This does not make them a patent troll, you know this of course, companies buy and make use of IP from other companies all the time. But that would get in the way of a handy soundbite.

 

[drunkenmaster]

I haven't and you are again ignoring that I was providing a counter example to YOUR CLAIM.

I'll quote it again for you

If you spend billions in R&D and actually sell products based on your patents, you are not trolling.

Your claim, not mine, Apple is a counter example to prove this categorically wrong. I didn't say this proves Nvidia are patent trolling, I didn't mention Nvidia in regards to this, I used Apple to completely disprove your claim. Rather than address that you scream straw man and make claims about things I've said, which I haven't.

I said (before your post) it LOOKS like they are patent trolling, you made a claim that a big company can't be patent trolling and look up the definition, I was disproving what you said, not backing up my guess that this is nothing more than Nvidia patent trolling.

Again you brought up "definition, definition, definition"..... by which again I pointed out that seemingly the patents in question were obtained by a basically bankrupt company for a fraction of the cost of the initial R&D, and having nothing to do with the billions Nvidia has spent on R&D since. Obtaining patents from a bankrupt company then hitting other companies with them is, as you put it, the very definition of patent trolling.

I have not claimed they are, again these are both things addressing the claims you have made.

Don't scream "look up the definition", if you don't want it pointed out to you that the definition agrees that your claims(that because they spend loads they can't be patent trolls) is patently( ) false.

As for valid reason, I haven't said they didn't do it without a valid reason.

Aureal sued Creative, and lost their company, despite being in the right. Apple, again a counter example to your claims, absolutely has filed bogus patent lawsuits against Samsung, everyone on earth knows they've been patent trolling, every article surround Apple suing Samsung mentions patent trolling. They have been around longer than Nvidia, make MUCH more than Nvidia, spend much more in R&D than Nvidia and ARE a patent troll, categorically. Stop making baseless claims that if you spend over a certain amount you can't be a patent troll, it's not an argument when there are numerous counter examples proving this false.

There are lots of reasons to sue a company, money being the main one, extortion, the fact that the legal process is... lets call it pliable. Being in the right isn't the be all and end all of suing someone. Thinking you can win, and being right, are different things. Creative were 100% in the wrong but knew they could win so went ahead and came out stronger for it. Having a valid reason doesn't dictate the reason is a good one.

 

[=XDC=FluphyBunny]

No, I said lawsuits seems the norm regardless of me agreeing/disagreeing with it. And it is the consumer who pays for it in the end with higher prices to cover losses/lawyers fees etc.

The thing that makes me chuckle and it seriously does is poor old AMD and bad nVidia always

As an 'underboss' should you really be trolling the forums like this. As explained AMD were illegally held back by Intel. Intel threw money at the courts till AMD ran out of money. Whats so difficult to understand? This is nothing like what seems to be happening here, especially in view of how selective Nvidia are been:

Graphics technology from Imagination is also used in Apple Inc's AAPL.O iPhones. Asked whether Nvidia plans to sue Apple since it uses Imagination's technology, Huang declined to comment.

I would much prefer NVidia to just do what they do best and leave this sort of nonsense to Apple.

 

[layte]

Jesus... stop it with the straw men.

How on earth can a sane person think this is patent trolling? Nvidia have held some of these patents for decades, have obviously been making products based on them. If they then decide they have to sue to protect their investment that is not patent trolling. It makes no difference if they invented it, or purchased it at a later date. They have obviously been making use of the IP they purchased, which makes them the exact opposite of a patent troll.

Rather than waste every bodies time skipping past another wall of text, I'll just imagine you posted the same thing in a slightly different way once again.

 

[Rusty0611]

As an 'underboss' should you really be trolling the forums like this. As explained AMD were illegally held back by Intel. Intel threw money at the courts till AMD ran out of money. Whats so difficult to understand? This is nothing like what seems to be happening here, especially in view of how selective Nvidia are been:

I would much prefer NVidia to just do what they do best and leave this sort of nonsense to Apple.

If that's trolling from Greg then you really need to get outside of the house more.

 

[tommybhoy]

Opinions are like belly buttons.

 

[oldestgregg]

This pretty much sums it up....

I guess it's expected...businesses are aways more interested in lining their pockets, even if it means at the cost of slowing down the pace of tech progression and hurting the end-user in the long run...

Anti-competition is what this is...

Exactly. I watched a documentary about patents a few months ago and its shocking. They have a massive building in .......(the state escapes me) in America thats empty but its a registered address for companies that buy up all the patents on anything and everything and then just sit on them slowing everyone else down

I know its not quite the same but I thought it relates to it

 

[Silent_Scone]

I love how DM gets so passionate about things which are largely irrelevant to the enthusiast.

It's all they talk about on semi accurate. Check the message boards out if you haven't already folks.


This is the first real infringement case they've made. Comparing it Apples patent abuse is laughable

 

[ubersonic]

http://www.google.com/patents/US6198488
That one PowerVR had well before NVidia. NVidia filing date Dec 6, 1999. PowerVR old pre 1999 series 2 chips outside the PC market had hardware T&L with Transform, lighting and rasterization system embodied on a single semiconductor platform.

It was the series 3 that introduced hardware T&L for PowerVR in 2001 IIRC (the series 2 was the Dreamcast GPU), the first GPU wiht it was the Geforce 256 in 1999 (S3 also had a GPU with HW T&L in late 1999 but never added support for it to the drivers).

 

[_Alatar_]

The specific 7 patents that are allegedly being infringed on:

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

Considering that NV has cross licensing agreements with intel, AMD etc. and these aren't some Apple-esque "we own squares" patents I don't really see an issue.

Seems like a normal big scale patent law suit. Also a company that's going on the patent "offensive" for the first time is hardly patent trolling.

 

[Pottsey]

Nvidia have spent billions of dollars over the past twenty plus years inventing new ideas and technology. They have a right to protect that investment.

But the patents in question are not ideas NVidia came up with and I believe you cannot even patent ideas. It’s the method you patent. Hardware T&L on the same platform as the GPU for example NVidia was one of the last to do. What if it turns out NVidia method matches PowerVR’s patents that pre date NVidia?

I also noticed everyone's jumped straight on nvidias back without knowing the intimate details? Any excuse eh.

Anyone think maybe they have a point? Maybe they have a solid case? Maybe it's worth them spending millions in legal fees to make a point to the tech world about their patents. I'm not suggesting they have any of this but everyone else seems to be of the assumption of nvidia = bad, they cannot possibly be doing something relatively normal in this day an age - protecting your financial interests.

I read the patents and at a glance it seems like NVidia are wrong. Most of the technology being sued over pre dates NVidia and pre dates NVidia mobile in some cases years. Some of the patents like hardware T&L are over 15years old why wait till now?

 

[_Alatar_]

why wait till now?

Hard to sue mobile SOC manufacturers 15 years ago when no one was even talking about smartphones.

Mobile GPU architectures have advanced (and been adopted by a crapton of companies) in the past few years. Give a team of lawyers a couple of years to form their suit and suddenly it looks like perfectly reasonable timing.

 

[bru]

But the patents in question are not ideas NVidia came up with and I believe you cannot even patent ideas. It’s the method you patent. Hardware T&L on the same platform as the GPU for example NVidia was one of the last to do. What if it turns out NVidia method matches PowerVR’s patents that pre date NVidia?






I read the patents and at a glance it seems like NVidia are wrong. Most of the technology being sued over pre dates NVidia and pre dates NVidia mobile in some cases years. Some of the patents like hardware T&L are over 15years old why wait till now?

Predating Nvidia is irrelevant, one of those patents was patented by a company that 3DFX bought out who in turn were bought out by Nvidia. That gives them every right to use said patent and ask for licensing fees for others who use it.

Now whether you agree or disagree with this is fine, but that is the way the legal system works over there and right or wrong that is what these companies work too.

 

[Pottsey]

I'd care to guess that a multi billion dollar corporation, who have over 20 years of experience creating and bringing to market graphics technology, is not a patent troll, attempting to sue an even larger corporation without a valid reason.

From my point of view PowerVR has designed a product and patented it well over 15 years ago. NVidia has come along years later made the same patent and gone hey you own me money. Not only that but NVidia waited 14+ years being going hey you are breaking my patents.

NVidia T&L patent is 14years old. PowerVR patent and products for T&L are even older. To me that looks like NVidia being a patent troll, do you not agree and if not why not?

How on earth can a sane person think this is patent trolling? Nvidia have held some of these patents for decades, have obviously been making products based on them.

I can only speak for PowerVR as I know them best but PowerVR has the same patents longer then NVidia and more importantly PowerVR had T&L products dating before NVidia patent. Like I said before NVidia patent is 1999. NVidia T&L product is 1999. PowerVR product and patent pre date 1999. That looks like patent trolling to me.

It is the same for unified shaders as far as I recall PowerVR had that years before NVidia. Nvidia only just added that this year in 2014 for the mobile market. PowerVR had that for around 10 years.

I think NVidia first did unified shaders in 2006 with the Geforce 8. PowerVR did it in 2005 with the SGX520.

It was the series 3 that introduced hardware T&L for PowerVR in 2001 IIRC (the series 2 was the Dreamcast GPU), the first GPU wiht it was the Geforce 256 in 1999 (S3 also had a GPU with HW T&L in late 1999 but never added support for it to the drivers)..

PowerVR had hardware T&L in series 2 for the arcade market. The arcade version of the dreamcast GPU had hardware T&L all pre dating GeForce.

 

[Pottsey]

Predating Nvidia is irrelevant, one of those patents was patented by a company that 3DFX bought out who in turn were bought out by Nvidia. That gives them every right to use said patent and ask for licensing fees for others who use it.

Now whether you agree or disagree with this is fine, but that is the way the legal system works over there and right or wrong that is what these companies work too.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. The date on the patent is 1999 as I said before I read the patents. The PowerVR stuff pre dates the patent NVidia are using. So I don’t see how NVidia have any right. PowerVR are just as old as 3DFX and had T&L before 3DFX. A lot of 3DFX feature like FSAA was copied from PowerVR.

 

[bru]

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. The date on the patent is 1999 as I said before I read the patents. The PowerVR stuff pre dates the patent NVidia are using. So I don’t see how NVidia have any right. PowerVR are just as old as 3DFX and had T&L before 3DFX. A lot of 3DFX feature like FSAA was copied from PowerVR.

ok fair enough, in that case can you link up the patents in question from Nvidia and the one form PowerVR so we can compare them please.

 

[David Bisset]

Urgh. Just reminds me of the Apple vs Samsung one where Apple won in the US as they'd patented stuff for use on a phone while Samsung had earlier taken out the same patents against a multimedia device. Patent court cases that are not about specific tech suck.

(Of course, as others have observed, I can't tell if the examples given are part of the 7 or 7k.... maybe they are suing over specifics in which case sort of fair enough. Though I've never agreed with the idea of buying patents from folding companies & then suing your competition with them.)