Back on September 4, Nvidia revealed that it had filed patent infringement complaints against Qualcomm and Samsung in the U.S. District Court in Delaware as well as with the U.S. International Trade Commission. Nvidia's portfolio contains over 7,000 patents (issued and pending), and Nvidia alleges that the two companies infringe on at least seven.
According to Nvidia, the company met with Samsung several times to show that these patents apply to the graphics architecture Samsung uses, and all Samsung mobile devices. Samsung fired back, saying that the problem "mostly" falls on its suppliers, not Samsung. Because the negotiations produced no results, Nvidia was forced to file its complaints.
"Without licensing Nvidia's patented GPU technology, Samsung and Qualcomm have chosen to deploy our IP without proper compensation to us," said Nvidia's David Shannon. "This is inconsistent with our strategy to earn an appropriate return on our investment."
Now, Nvidia reported that Samsung has filed a complaint of its own and has for some reason included Virginia-based PC maker Velocity Micro in the process. This lawsuit covers eight patents, all of which are supposedly violated by Velocity Micro and six of which are violated by Nvidia.
Shannon reported on Wednesday that Samsung claimed Nvidia is misleading customers with false advertisements by saying the Tegra K1 is "the world's fastest mobile processor." To back up that claim, Samsung insisted that several benchmarks reveal that its Exynos 5433 is a bit faster than Nvidia's Tegra K1.
"We aren't yet ready to respond formally to Samsung's lawsuit," Shannon added. "But we can't hold back on their false contention that Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 outperforms the Shield tablet."
Shannon indicated that Samsung is going after PC maker Velocity Micro because the company wants to keep the fight within Virginia due to the state's speedy processing. Velocity Micro President and CEO, Randy Copeland, sounded surprised in his open letter to the public, stating that the lawsuit came out of nowhere.
"We know nothing about the previous issues between Samsung and Nvidia, and we don’t care," Copeland said.
His response to the lawsuit seems rather bitter, revealing that the small boutique company will be forced to use "precious company resources and energy" to defend itself from Samsung. This is not the company's fight, he said, yet Samsung's legal tactic will affect not only the employees of Velocity Micro, but the surrounding community.
"If this is how Samsung operates, we want no part of it, and we hope others agree and consider this during this upcoming holiday shopping season," Copeland concluded.
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