Nvidia Sues Qualcomm And Samsung For Infringing On Its GPU Patents
The patent wars are far from over, but this time a patent lawsuit isn’t coming from the usual suspects in the mobile market, but from Nvidia, which is suing both Qualcomm and Samsung over alleged infringement on seven of its graphics patents.
A year ago, Nvidia announced its Kepler licensing program, which many thought was the company’s plan to put its GPU technology in other chips in order to make Nvidia even more ubiquitous in the market. However, it now appears that it may have been Nvidia’s plan to get other GPU IP designers like Qualcomm, ARM and Imagination to pay royalties for its Kepler patents.
Nvidia asserts that Qualcomm is infringing on its GPU IP, and therefore both Qualcomm and Samsung, (which uses Qualcomm’s chips) must pay it a royalty. Nvidia even went to Samsung to cut a deal, but apparently Samsung didn’t want to hear anything about it, so it rejected any agreement between the two, saying this is mostly the suppliers’ problem.
“Without licensing Nvidia’s patented GPU technology, Samsung and Qualcomm have chosen to deploy our IP without proper compensation to us. This is inconsistent with our strategy to earn an appropriate return on our investment. We are now seeking the courts’ judgment to confirm the validity, infringement and value of our patents so that we can reach agreement with Samsung and its graphics suppliers,” reads the Nvidia post.
Nvidia has already asked the ITC to block some of Samsung’s shipments to the U.S., that include devices such as the recently-announced Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge, as well as the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S5, Galaxy S4 and tablets such as the Galaxy Tab S, Galaxy Tab 2 and Galaxy Note Pro. Nvidia has also asked the Delaware Court to award it damages.
Nvidia claims these are the kind of patented technologies Samsung and Qualcomm infringed on:
"Those patents include our foundational invention, the GPU, which puts onto a single chip all the functions necessary to process graphics and light up screens; our invention of programmable shading, which allows non-experts to program sophisticated graphics; our invention of unified shaders, which allow every processing unit in the GPU to be used for different purposes; and our invention of multithreaded parallel processing in GPUs, which enables processing to occur concurrently on separate threads while accessing the same memory and other resources."
Whether those claims are true or not, it is important to remember that a few years ago Nvidia also scored a big $1.5 billion win against Intel in another major licensing agreement, after years of Intel disputing the patent claims.
This time, Nvidia has also carefully chosen only seven patents out of over 7,000 that it has either issued or has pending, so the company must believe it has a strong case against Qualcomm and Samsung. Ultimately, it’s up to the Courts to decide the validity of those patents and if Nvidia is in the right or not.
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At a glance, most of those patents should never have been granted in the first place since they have tons of prior art in CPUs, older GPUs from before programmable shaders, obvious/natural technological progress, etc.
None of the summaries from Nvidia's patent struck me as genuinely original.
Qualcomm directly purchased its graphics technology from AMD many years ago and have ran with it advancing the design greatly. Nvidia is crazy.
At a glance, most of those patents should never have been granted in the first place since they have tons of prior art in CPUs, older GPUs from before programmable shaders, obvious/natural technological progress, etc.
None of the summaries from Nvidia's patent struck me as genuinely original.
Maybe NVIDIA have realised that they need other revenue streams, no matter how dubious.
Also if you check that from a mobile Platform point of view, they target the big part of the market that they try to get. It's really bad.
So you'll go back to the other company even though you didn't like them all because the current vendor you're with has some shady business practices even though you like their products more.
Wait what? This is the first time NVIDIA (as a company) has ever filed a patent lawsuit. NVIDIA tried to negotiate with Samsung, Samsung told them to f*** off. So NVIDIA went to court.
The only thing that should raise eyebrows is that NVIDIA let this sit for two years before the injunction. That I believe only NVIDIA can answer.
AnandTech had an interesting read on the subject. They believe their going after Samsung because their the largest supplier in the US and Qualcomm being the largest SoC. It makes sense to start at the top.
I don't like the way patents are used, but if nVidia is claiming what they are, then they clearly have the upperhand. Also, Samsung is not a company that seeks innovation. They are a more of a business and they declined negotiations. I'd like to see the royalties help nVidia make better technologies. However, the price-gouging of their products is a different beast...
So you'll go back to the other company even though you didn't like them all because the current vendor you're with has some shady business practices even though you like their products more.
Wait what? This is the first time NVIDIA (as a company) has ever filed a patent lawsuit. NVIDIA tried to negotiate with Samsung, Samsung told them to f*** off. So NVIDIA went to court.
The only thing that should raise eyebrows is that NVIDIA let this sit for two years before the injunction. That I believe only NVIDIA can answer.
AnandTech had an interesting read on the subject. They believe their going after Samsung because their the largest supplier in the US and Qualcomm being the largest SoC. It makes sense to start at the top.
Have you considered that Nvidia's outrageous terms were the reason that Samsung told them to "f*** off'? Nvidia's proposal had an insane up front fee and a multiple times more than industry standard royalty associated with individual product sales.
While Samsung makes the chips in their their fabs, they actually license the CPU and GPU as IP cores straight from ARM.
Nvidia should be suing ARM since Samsung and other companies using Mali IGPs did not actually design the IGP in their chips and ARM is licensing the same infringing GPUs to everyone who wants to use them.
They can't do anything to Samsung for using Qualcomm SoCs in their products, that part is actually funny. I certainly won't cry for Qualcomm.
Next they will be trying to patent stuff like the tablet, or the home computer.
Next they will be trying to patent stuff like the tablet, or the home computer.
Or "rectangular devices with rounded corners"...
P.S. - That one has been done already ;-)
If Qualcomm copped NVidia's Kepler architecture to replace previous Adreno architecture previous to Andreno 330, Qualcomm should definitely pay up.
What also makes this interesting, and shows NVidia isn't just patent trolling, is that the case is NOT being held in Texas, where they let you sue for anything without worry.
If Qualcomm copped NVidia's Kepler architecture to replace previous Adreno architecture previous to Andreno 330, Qualcomm should definitely pay up.
What also makes this interesting, and shows NVidia isn't just patent trolling, is that the case is NOT being held in Texas, where they let you sue for anything without worry.
Qualcomm didn't take anything from Nvidia. Adreno graphics are directly based on the old AMD mobile graphics which they bought years ago.
Kepler, while very effective for desktops, has proven to consume too much power for smartphones. Why do you think the Nvidia Shield is so big? its to help cool the GPU inside of it. Not to mention if it was Kepler tech, they would of directly said that and would have a lot more proof than arbitrarily suing for every part of a GPU.