Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

SGI Sues ATI for Patent Infringement

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the mommy-they're-playing-unfair dept.

Ynsats writes "The Register is reporting that SGI is filing suit against ATI for patent infringement. The suit alleges that ATI violated patent number 6,650,327, "Display system having floating point rasterization and floating point framebuffering", which was filed in 1998 and granted in 2003, in its Radeon graphics cards. This is coming fast on the heels of AMD's announcement of the intention to buy ATI for $4.2B and it doesn't seem to be swaying AMD's intentions. AMD hopes to finish the takeover by the end of this year. SGI has also issued an ominous statement stating that they have plenty of intellectual property left and there will be more litigation to come."

18 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Ryu2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can't beat them, sue them...

    --
    There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
    1. Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The difference here is that SGI really did invent a lot of things, and their patents are probably valid.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Like he said, if you can't beat them, sue them. ("Valid" patents or not, they are still resorting to litigation-as-business-model like any dying company in the US does.)

    3. Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the parent was trying to restate, in layman's terms, the patent stipulation that an idea is patentable only if it is non-obvious to someone skilled in the trade. If the idea is very simple, but that company was just the first one to think, "Hey, we can patent this", then it is pretty lame. At least, that's how I read it after a few mental contortions. :-)

    4. Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by theStorminMormon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Isn't that part of the reason we have a statue of limitations? It does seem to change the moral dimensions if you are happy to watch someone profit off of your idea, then sue them once they are a nice plump target. How to you distinguish between a patent troll that's happy to watch other people do all the work and take all the risks of going to market and a company that, for whatever reason, is incapable of suing in a timely manner?

      The rewards of using an idea aren't just from the IP, they're also from the marketing, from the manufacturing, and from the risk-taking. Since the patent-holder invested none of that, why should they profit from it? If the patent stealing prevented the company from doing that (e.g. if a poor inventor can't keep up with a rich manufacturing firm) that's one thing, but if a company simply sits on a patent while another company works with it - why should we reward the lack of investment?

      -stormin

      --
      The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
    5. Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by jank1887 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      so... the patent was only granted in 2003. It's now 2006. I would tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that 3 years is about the right amount of time to investigate (reverse engineer, if need be) whether a rival's technology is infringing, attempt to secure a licensing agreement, and then, after that, file infringement suits. On a 17 year patent, 3 years is young. It's not like they filed on some vague idea 14 years ago that wasn't even implementable then, and now that something looks close enough to what they cooked up back then they start suing. THAT would be troll-ish.

    6. Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by ari_j · · Score: 3, Insightful

      SGI still has viable products. This is actual protection of its intellectual property in the one area that it has always (rightly) prided itself in leading. SCO is different because it is litigating something it didn't invent and has no continuing interest in protecting. SGI might be dying, but it is not yet at the point that its business model gives priority to litigation.

      Where would you draw the line? When is it okay to litigate to protect your intellectual property without being accused of having a business model of litigation?

  2. And so it begins... by gfxguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The SCO-iffying of sgi. I used to love SGI. I still love their old hardware, from Indys to Reality Engines, from the 4D85 I started on (before they gave fancy names) to the Onyx Infinite Reality that we ran virtual sets on in real time long before PCs could even think about doing this stuff, and the sgi's ran a lot of our live TV well into the PC era, doing a better job than PCs could years after the sgis were released.

    But now it's over and sgi has become an office with a few lawyers, and this is what the call emerging from bankrupcy.

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
  3. Not the first time by tjkslashdot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone else remember they gave NVidia the same treatment back in the heady day's of '98? This is nothing new for SGI. "Rattle the cage, and try to stave off the end with another lawsuit." How did that last one work for SGI? Not so well....

  4. Re:Huh? by ThosLives · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem is that this patent fails the obviousness test about 100%. The patent itself, if you follow the link, says that "People have used floating point before, just in emulation because hardware cost too much. Now that hardware is cheap, we just do floating point rasterization from the framebuffer instead of through emulation."

    I don't understand how the USPTO granted a patent that says "This method has been known for some time, but now we just have the capability to do it."

    I'm all for granting legitimate patents (they do actually exist) but this one does not pass the sanity check.

    --
    "There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
  5. Re:welcome back SGI by timeOday · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It seems fair that SGI, who was very big in the game not that long ago and can no longer compete, should be able to collect dues for their patented ideas.
    If only you had said "legal" instead of "fair."

    SGI did have their heyday. They had many good innovations, and at the time they also made a lot of money on those innovations for their employees and investors. That's all teriffic.

    But now that it's over, what good will be had by forcing us to pay an "SGI Tax" on anything to do with graphics for the next N years?

  6. Classic case of innovator's dilemma? by defile · · Score: 4, Insightful

    SGI is the market leader in high performance graphics.

    Someone makes cool 3d video game with a VGA.

    SGI laughs, continues selling workstations for $10k.

    Someone releases a commodity 3d graphics card.

    SGI laughs, continues selling workstations for $10k.

    Someone releases a fast commodity 3d graphics card.

    SGI laughs, but to placate the market, throws half-hearted PC graphics effort over the wall (Fahrenheit, x86 workstations, etc.) Effort is severely overpriced due to SGI's existing value network/cost structures. No one buys it.

    SGI thinks little of it, decides to let the commodity vendors have their razor thin margins, they're doing them a favor by leaving all of the fat deals to them, right?

    Commodity 3d graphics vendor offers lucrative deal to SGI top talent.

    SGI top talent, looking for new and exciting and more money jump ship.

    SGI, instead of getting the message, continues to focus on moving up-market and ignoring commodity markets.

    Commodity graphics grows into a dozens of billions of dollar market.

    SGI participates in none of it. Dies instead.

    Clap. Clap. Clap.

    1. Re:Classic case of innovator's dilemma? by SirKron · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Delete:
      • SGI participates in none of it. Dies instead.
      Insert:
      • AMD gobbles up SGI too as the company is cheaper than the future cost of attorney fees to defend against the patent claims.
      • Intel, NVIDIA shit themselves as their graphics cards also infringe the patents.
      • Lawsuit proceeds pays for SGI acquisition and more.
  7. Re:The solution is easy by Dachannien · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If AMD can buy ATI for $4.2B, can't they simply add a few bucks to buy SGI too?

    Why else would SGI be doing this? Eventually, either they'll sue the right deep pockets and get bought out, or another company will take a look at their growing list of pending lawsuits and decide they want in on that action. At least, that's the plan.

  8. Re:Huh? by jcr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem is that this patent fails the obviousness test about 100%.

    If it's so obvious, why didn't you do it first?

    Implementing floating-point framebuffers is non-trivial problem, and SGIs solutions to doing so are why they deserved the patent.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  9. Re:Paradigm Shift by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except SGI could actually have legit patents.
    SGI should have thought of spinning off it's graphics IP a long time ago. Take a look at ARM. They make nothing but IP and money.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  10. Re:welcome back SGI by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A once great company behaving like a patent troll is still a patent troll.

    A patent is intended to be a device to protect non-obvious research and innovation from being stolen so that you can reap the rewards in your product line. In this case, the research was not stolen, as ATI thought of it too. And SGI no longer has a product line to protect.

    They're suing ATI because they have no way left to make money. Period. They're not protecting their own product line or income stream, as they have neither. They're not even protecting their own research, as ATI developed this independently. They're just in their death throes, and are suing.

    Remember, patent mutually assured destruction doesn't work if one company no longer has a product line to destroy. Dying companies have a habit of taking others with them.

    --
    The ______ Agenda
  11. Re:welcome back SGI by fistfullast33l · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good catch on that. Not many people will pay attention. I bet it took them 3 years to file the lawsuit because law moves slower than technology, and they had to take time to build a claim. I'd like to give SGI the benefit of the doubt here and say they're not a patent troll. You don't just file a lawsuit and hope for the best. As a business you need to make sure that your decision can be backed up (otherwise you become SCOX). Of course, I bet the bankruptcy had a lot to do both with the decision to file and the delay in filing. Plus, we don't know if SGI approached ATI before this and offered a deal over litigation.