Thursday, September 4th 2014

NVIDIA Files Complaints Against Samsung and Qualcomm for Patent Infringement

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.

NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said: "As the world leader in visual computing, NVIDIA has invented technologies that are vital to mobile computing. We have the richest portfolio of computer graphics IP in the world, with 7,000 patents granted and pending, produced by the industry's best graphics engineers and backed by more than $9 billion in R&D.

"Our patented GPU inventions provide significant value to mobile devices. Samsung and Qualcomm have chosen to use these in their products without a license from us. We are asking the courts to determine infringement of NVIDIA's GPU patents by all graphics architectures used in Samsung's mobile products and to establish their licensing value."

A pioneer in computer graphics, NVIDIA invented the GPU. The graphics processing unit enables computers to generate and display images. It brings to life the beautiful graphics that shape how people enjoy their mobile devices and is fundamental to the rise of mobile computing. NVIDIA GPUs are some of the most complex processors ever created, requiring over a thousand engineering-years to create and containing more than 7 billion transistors.
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108 Comments on NVIDIA Files Complaints Against Samsung and Qualcomm for Patent Infringement

#101
Xzibit
If by normal you mean a clearer path for both Samsung and Qualcomm then yes.

This all started because no-one was interested in Nvidia tegra or its IP offering into the mobile market. It was Nvidias way of lashing out

It also could come back to haunt Nvidia since Samsung had already taken servers from Tegra and Qualcomm entering ARM server space too.
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#102
Fluffmeister
Maybe, maybe not. But last time I checked Nvidia were doing pretty well all things considered.

But if what you say is true, that isn't going to do AMD any favours either.
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#103
HumanSmoke
FluffmeisterMaybe, maybe not. But last time I checked Nvidia were doing pretty well all things considered.
But if what you say is true, that isn't going to do AMD any favours either.
You would probably expect Qualcomm to follow the lead of the other ARM server companies in offering a GPGPU option, but I suspect that would require some heavy lifting by both QC and AMD. QC being an HSA member you would think would tend to lean heavily toward AMD if the toolchain is in place - and it might just have to since Qualcomm's main ARM server competition - Applied Micro and Cavium already have Nvidia GPU hardware qualified, and have been selling the GPGPU systems since Cavium added Tesla support back in March. Somehow I don't think Qualcomm will want to sit around twiddling its thumbs, especially with Avago/Broadcom about to get involved with Vulcan. Applied Micro and Cavium are pretty small fish, but Avago/Broadcom has the finances and the IP to make a bigger dent in the industry.
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#104
john_
Now we only have to see if Samsung's lawsuit will have the same luck, or if Nvidia in the end will have managed to score an own goal with this.
Posted on Reply
#105
Unregistered
TheMailMan78You have no clue who you are talking to do you?
Don't be eating the newbs MM, you know what w1zzard told you about that.
Posted on Edit | Reply
#106
Xzibit
john_Now we only have to see if Samsung's lawsuit will have the same luck, or if Nvidia in the end will have managed to score an own goal with this.
Bloomberg Business - Samsung Wins First Round in Graphics Patent Case Nvidia
A U.S. trade judge said Nvidia Corp. infringed Samsung Electronics Co. patents, offering another win for the Korean gear-maker in a running legal battle between the electronics companies.
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