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NVIDIA Sues 3dfx For Patent Infringement
David D writes: "Apparently NVIDIA has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against 3dfx. The CEO of NVIDIA commented, ``We have always been on the forefront of innovation in 3D graphics technology and visual computing...''. The competition has been pretty even, with 3dfx having no apparent advantage over NVIDIA. Where will this lead?"
The patents that NVIDIA is suing boil down to methods for efficient I/O - in the words of Derek Perez of NVIDIA
3dfx infringes on at least 5 patents dating back as far as NV1. All 5 patents are essentially I/O patents relating to efficiency of the interaction between the graphics processor and the core logic, memory or CPU.
But like all patents, these are't easy reading. Trying to get to the essence of the method isn't easy. But here goes anyway:
Patent 6,092,124 can be sumarised as being very similar to a local cache - a DMA sits next to the I/O bus and acts as a buffer for passing information over the I/O bridge or back down to system memory depending on the value of pointers held in the DMA. To me this does not sound very original - it sounds like a primitive level 2 cache.
Pate nt 5,758,182 This one is an autonomous (of the OS) memory manager - it maps virtual addresses to physical ones. It uses pages to map memory and holds structures keeping tabs on that memory. Hardly mind blowing stuff. The main swansong of this patent is that it does this without the need for the OS to be involved, but I strongly suspect this is a commonly used technique and hardly worthy of patent protection - indeed for an autonomous device like a graphics card I think it would be difficult to avoid coming up with something like this regardless of your prior knowledge - you have to have something managing the memory on the card and it has to live with getting it's info from the application because most OS's won't necessarily be aware of the memory configuration on the board. In fact, the only work around for this patent as far as I can see is to expose the memory to the OS and let it use it as it sees fit. I have used one system where the VRAM could be used as system memory (Acorn RiscPC) but there was no hardware acceleration on that system. As soon as the GPU does any work on the memory at its fast IO busses to that graphics card RAM, there would have to be negotiation between the OS and the card to update the page tables on memory and that would hamstring a GPU card.
I could go on but there are other people here on Slashdot who can do a better hatchett job on these patents. But these patents strike me as being 'obvious'. And I'm an NVIDIA card owner too so I'm not some disgruntled 3dfx owner with an axe to grind.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
But buy for the hardware, or buy for the software. Don't buy on principle. It doesn't work
The more I looked at your post, the angier I've gotten. Your comment (quoted above) is an incredible irresponsible way to be a consumer. I dislike the way MS acts in the computer industry, but I am supposed to give them my money because Word is better than Wordperfect?? I despise what the MPAA is going to DVDs, and yet by your logic it's ok to fund their legal fees by seeing a movie?? I'm sorry, but the way capitalism works is by voting with your checkbook (think DIVX), and I will never give my hard earned money to a company that violates the priniciples that I hold to. Angry young man? You might call me that, but I'd rather be that than a irresponible, apathetic slug.
And there are other choices besides 3dfx and nvidia, after all. Matrox makes a fine card, has open source drivers, and doesn't waste their time suing the competition. I'm sure you could find something shady in their history, but it's nothing as blatant as what we are seeing with nvidia or 3dfx.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Do you code? Here's the situation: You are an NVidia engineer and you are writing Linux drivers. You are working on the kernel abstraction layer (for which the source code is included with the drivers). To figure out how to do it, you take a look at some GPL'd code. It's a small amount of code, and it does just what you want. What do you do? 99% of programmers would just copy the code. Save an hour or two. It does the exact same thing, and you are just going to have to re-write it anyway, so why on Earth would anyone care if you just copied it? Hey, it's going into the open source layer of the driver anyway, so it couldn't possibly piss anyone off.
If you knew the open source community better, of course you would know that it would indeed piss many people off. Clearly, the NVidia engineer did not know this. Fortunately, most of the extreme zealots have never typed a line of C in their life. In NVidia's case, the code they used was written by a nice, though rigid person who forgave NVidia for the error but asked that they remove the code anyway. So, they did, within a couple of days.
I'll give you a few good reasons:
If I were the type to keep graphics cards that long, I would consider buying from another company. As it is, I am not. Besides that, NVidia's driver architecture is such that the drivers they write for cards five years from now will work with the cards they are making today.
If NVidia ever gets to Microsoft's level, where they actually slow down innovation due to lack of competition, or if they ever appear to be heading in that direction, I will stop supporting them. As it is right now, NVidia is improving their hardware far faster than any of the competition, and I like that. That is why I support them. I want a company that advances their hardware with new features and faster processors, not one that "supports today's games".
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This message is addressed to the Slashdot collective. That is, the large group of vocal Slashdotters who all think alike and act alike, and all carry the same extreme and often incorrect biases and predjudices. If the reader is not one of these people, then please do not take this personally.
Yep, yep, yep. There they go again. The Slashdot collective. You guys are just too damned focused on politics. Why? Politics are stupid and futile, as I have discovered. (Case and point, the coming US election...)
Look, my point is, you all see "NVidia sues 3dfx" and instantly most of the people on Slashdot assume NVidia is evil. Most of you have considered NVidia to be evil for quite some time (since they decided not to give their extremely-high-quality drivers to their competitors for free (GL drivers have a lot of hardware-independent code it them!)) and more evidence is just what you want. Woohoo, rally behind 3dfx, they're saints!
Well, what if I told you that two years ago 3dfx sued NVidia over a patent the held on multitexturing? That's right: The act of applying more than one texture to a surface. 3dfx patented it. Then they sued NVidia. I would have a link to a news article about it, but my internet connection is on the fritz. Please see Linuxgames for a link to such an article.
So, now who is the evil one? Answer: They BOTH are! Almost every large corporation on this planet has done something evil. Those that don't go out of business.
If you try to judge a corporation on any sort of principles, you are likely to judge incorrectly. Personally, I have given up on judging such things. It is futile. All that matters to me now is who makes the best hardware. And for me, a 3D game engine writer, that is NVidia. If you want to buy 3dfx, fine. I don't care anymore. But buy for the hardware, or buy for the software. Don't buy on principle. It doesn't work.
Obviously, I expect this to be moderated down as flaimbait. Do your worst. My karma has been maxed out for quite some time.
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The thing that sucks about this is that 3dfx has at least been providing the source to their drivers. While Nvidia does make some sexy cards, and even puts out some decent drivers, they are binary.
That sort of thing in theory isnt a big deal, but when you end up with a closed source driver that cant do dual head, cant do other things that we SHOULD be able to do universally, it becomes a problem.
Now, with this lawsuit, we have a closed-driver company versus a very open company. Granted, it took 3dfx a little while to come to the table, but they are here now.
Lets throw some support behind 3dfx.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
The patents in question are:
I'm surprised that nobody ever considers the possibility of parallel development tracks.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
- Alex has an idea. It may not be an original idea, but no one has been able to make it work before.
- Alex spends a significant amount of time and/or money making it work.
- Alex worries that as soon as he puts his product on the market, everyone will copy it and undersell him as he has R&D costs to recoup.
- Alex patents his invention, puts it on the market, and reaps the rewards.
Patents were NOT created to protect this:- Bob finds himself in a rapidly advancing industry where nearly every day someone confronts a new problem they've never seen before, and solves it. Many of these solutions are of the form "Do process $FOO on a computer, where previously it was done by people."
- Knowing it's a virtual certaintly that others will have the same idea, Bob seeks patent protection for his "invention". In fact, other people are already doing the very same thing, and there's no reason to believe they got the idea from Bob.
- An understaffed and ignorant USPO grants the patent, thereby giving Bob leverage to legally extort money from people who aren't using his idea at all, but rather thought up the very same idea themselves.
- Bob becomes wildly rich by forcing others to pay for the priviledge of using their own work.
Do you really not understand the problem here? Patents should protect you from having me steal your ideas. I can't buy your widget, take it apart, and build one just like it. They should not protect you from independent reinvention especially where everyone in the field can be reasonably expected to independently come up with the *same* invention (tabbed widgets, anyone?). Patents aren't (or shouldn't be, anyway) about rewarding the first guy clever enough to document an idea and run off to his lawyer. Patents should be about encouraging innovation by assuring inventors that their legitimate hard work won't be stolen. Maybe your acquaintences are these hard working inventors. Maybe they're yet another instance of patenting "Do $foo on a computer."I wonder if it's too late to patent getting a "Do $foo on a computer." patent as a business practice. Too much prior art, no doubt.