SGI Sues ATI for Patent Infringement

Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Ryu2 · 2006-10-25 00:48 · 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.

Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by jcr · 2006-10-25 00:56 · 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."
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-25 01:25 · 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.)
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by tomstdenis · 2006-10-25 01:28 · Score: 2, Funny

ATI deserves to be sued. Their Linux support is horrible. :-)

And AMD still owes me a grand from my Linux World expenses... cheap bastards the lot of them!

Tom

--
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by AndrewRUK · 2006-10-25 01:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

And what, exactly, is creating something original, if not being "the first one to get there"?
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by jcr · 2006-10-25 01:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Nope. Making a display system work with floating point is a pretty massive undertaking technically, and I'm sure it resulted in quite a few patentable inventions along the way.

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-25 01:40 · 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. :-)
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by russotto · 2006-10-25 01:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

A patent is not on the concept itself, it's on the actual "invention" - the method and / or mechanism.
You're thinking of the old patent system. In the new patent system, you patent the goal and then sue anyone who reaches it. This patent is definitely an example of that.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by swthomas55 · 2006-10-25 01:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

Alexander Graham Bell was 4 hours ahead of a rival inventor filing the patent on his telephone. Being first is all, in this race. (From Wikipedia: Bell then secured his own patent in 1876, just hours before Elisha Gray visited the patent office for his own work on the telephone.)

The Wikipedia article also tells the story of Antonio Meucci, who apparently invented the telephone several years earlier but was too poor to take out a patent. Seems things really weren't all that different 130 years ago.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Niddix · 2006-10-25 02:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

The difference is this.

Alexander Graham Bell didn't sit there and watch Elisha Gray build a sucessful business selling his 'rogue' telephones. Then wait till he was tired of being a broke inventor then sue him.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by swthomas55 · 2006-10-25 02:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

So you're saying that since SGI didn't sue ATI years ago, they should just roll over and let their patent rights evaporate? If my neighbor has been letting his dog dump on my front lawn for years, does that mean that I lose my right to ask him to pick it up or take the dog elsewhere? I don't think so.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Changer2002 · 2006-10-25 03:07 · Score: 5, Informative

Not having read the patent, I can't comment on this particular one, but one thing /.'ers love to do is point out how obvious patents are based on their titles. Being a lawyer and working with patents all day let me just state that the title of a patent often doesn't spell out what the inventive step is. It's just a general topic and area, and in a crowded area sometimes the titles are pretty generic. Usually you have to really get into the patent to find out what the innovation is (if it's there). So before you declare a patent obvious take a look at it, not just it's title.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by daeg · 2006-10-25 03:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

By not enforcing the patents earlier, yes, SGI should forfeit their right to pursue violators in the legal system. You can't just sit back and wait for a company to turn profitable and be on the verge of a $4.2B takeover before suing them.

"Hey! They have money now! GET THEM!"
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by theStorminMormon · 2006-10-25 03:15 · 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.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by jank1887 · 2006-10-25 03:30 · 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.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by I+Like+Pudding · 2006-10-25 03:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

> And what, exactly, is creating something original, if not being "the first one to get there"?

something original = copyright
something original + non-obvious* = patent

* not applicable in the US (fucking goddamn it)
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Zordak · 2006-10-25 04:19 · Score: 2, Funny

If my neighbor has been letting his dog dump on my front lawn for years, does that mean that I lose my right to ask him to pick it up or take the dog elsewhere? I don't think so.

Well, actually, if you let his dog dump on your lawn long enough, it's possible that your neighbor has established an easement for his dog dumping on your lawn by virtue of adverse possession. At that point, your neighbor would have an established property interest in your lawn that gives him the right to let his dog poop on it. If you have a right, you're always better off asserting it sooner rather than later.
But your point is otherwise valid. In this case, they appear to be well within the statute of limitations for patent infringement, so the suit is proper.

--

Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by modecx · 2006-10-25 04:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

Being a lawyer and working with patents all day let me just state that the title of a patent often doesn't spell out what the inventive step is. It's just a general topic and area, and in a crowded area sometimes the titles are pretty generic

Point taken, the patent titles often don't accurately describe something, if indeed they actually try to describe anything at all. We should probably thank you lawyers for that.

A floating point rasterization and frame buffer in a computer system graphics program. The rasterization, fog, lighting, texturing, blending, and antialiasing processes operate on floating point values. In one embodiment, a 16-bit floating point format consisting of one sign bit, ten mantissa bits, and five exponent bits (s10e5), is used to optimize the range and precision afforded by the 16 available bits of information. In other embodiments, the floating point format can be defined in the manner preferred in order to achieve a desired range and precision of the data stored in the frame buffer. The final floating point values corresponding to pixel attributes are stored in a frame buffer and eventually read and drawn for display. The graphics program can operate directly on the data in the frame buffer without losing any of the desired range and precision of the data.

I'm not a professional engineer of 3D stuffs, or even more than a novice programmer, but it seems fairly obvious that floating point rasterization of fog, lighting, texturing, blending and antialiasing is no less than the obvious way to do it... Defining the size of your floating point operators to optimize the precision you need dosen't sound particularly non-obvious, either. I like SGI, but it really sounds like this is a bogus patent.

The one part that might echo of some innovative thing is the last scentance: The graphics program can operate directly on the data in the frame buffer without losing any of the desired range and precision of the data. But I'd wager that people in the demo scene have been doing that for a long time.

--
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by udippel · 2006-10-25 05:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

Not even in the old system. There is an International Class for Patents on Perpetuum Mobile.
Which surely would have never worked in front of the officer ... .

The whole patent system has gone down the drain. Worldwide and not only the USPTO. WIPO is a bunch of industrial puppets these days, and the - then - great EPO has become a patent printing mill as well.

And, yes, I have spent more than 6 years of my life as patent examiner, in case you thought I was just a troll.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by dgatwood · 2006-10-25 05:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

Indeed, MPEG and other graphics standards have done floating point for many, many years---since 1989, even. Hardware implementations have been around almost as long. The line between a hardware decoder for a video format and a video framebuffer is essentially nil. Indeed, ATI was doing MPEG decoding in their graphics chips prior to when this patent was filed.

I'm not saying that SGI doesn't have any valid patents, but at least the floating point framebuffer portion of this one should be tossed out. It is effectively nothing more than storing the same data at a different address. The floating point rasterization claims seem more novel, though.

--
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Jahz · 2006-10-25 06:10 · Score: 2, Informative

> And what, exactly, is creating something original, if not being "the first one to get there"?

something original = copyright
something original + non-obvious* = patent

Way off-base. The problem is that so many Americans do not really understand what a Patent or Copyright is. Right from the horses mouth (USPTO):

" There are three types of patents:
1) Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof;
2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture;
3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant. "

The key here is that patents are for things that are invented. The invention may be an entirely new idea or a significant improvement on some other idea. By idea, I mean: "process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter." So even though 64-bit cards are the natural evolution of 32-bit graphics cards, SGI was the first company to "think of" this improvement to the cards.

On the other hand a copyright only applies to authored materials, namely "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished." You may copyright the manual describing how to manufacture a 64-bit graphics card, but you would have to patent the procedures in that manual.

Back to the OP. So you see, your definition of a patent as being a "non-obvious copyright" is way off base.

--
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Some_Llama · 2006-10-25 06:12 · Score: 2, Funny

"Well, actually, if you let his dog dump on your lawn long enough, it's possible that your neighbor has established an easement for his dog dumping on your lawn by virtue of adverse possession."

What about a neighboor's cat? I have a number of neighboors who have no qualms with letting their cats be "outdoor" cats, which means they come and poop on my lawn, since they usually do this at night I don't know about it till I get a whiff of cat poop in the morning when I open my windows...

Would it be wrong to shoot the cats with a paintball gun if I see them pooping on my lawn years later when i finally catch one of them?

*desks himself in camo, loads paintballs and waits...*
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Mike+Savior · 2006-10-25 06:55 · Score: 2

Thanks, I really do appreciate when people clear things up like that for me.

--
space is pretty cool.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by ari_j · 2006-10-25 07:59 · 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?
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by Osiris+Ani · 2006-10-25 08:05 · Score: 2, Informative

guess/hope most people would find the idea of Peary patenting the very process of reaching a pole rather silly

...and it would indeed be rather silly, had he not invented any new and novel means to achieve that particular end. Your failure to see the difference between the circumstances presented in your exceptionally obtuse analogy (there existed prior art for numerous forms of self-sustained human ambulatory movement, as well as other basic and elaborate forms of geographic transport) and reality is a reflection not of a general failure in the system, but of your lack of understanding of that system.

The first team to reach either pole by means of a teleportation device that they invented has a very good chance of acquiring a valid patent on the process.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by flaming-opus · 2006-10-25 08:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

You know, as much as we feel good bashing the patent troll, the patent process is really built to protect the little guy from the market Gorillas. Lets say I come up with a really clever design for a widget that is really clever and useful. Because I don't have a supply chain, or much manufacturing capacity, it costs me a thousand bucks a unit to manufacture. Then General Amalgamated Industries sees I'm selling them as fast as I can make them, copies the design, and can build them for a hundred bucks, undercutting me and putting me out of business. The idea of a patent, is that the little guy, if he comes up with something that really is a unique invention, has a short period of years to sell the product, without competing with unlicensed knock-offs. It's really a very progressive idea.

The real challenge with patent law in the IT industry is that the patent laws were written when the pace of invention, and of the market were slower. 15 years without competition is a very, very long time in the computer world. Much moreso than competing designs of steam engine.
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by mikael · 2006-10-25 09:22 · Score: 2, Informative

In some states, I believe that squatters on private property can acquire the title if they can prove they've been living on the property unchallenged for ten years.

It's certainly true in England - a guy managed to gain ownership of a house simply by squatting there for 16 years. Didn't make a nuisance of himself, was polite to everyone and the council didn't find out for 16 years.

--
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Re:Reminds me of another three letter 'S' company by mabhatter654 · 2006-10-25 16:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

The patent was orginally filed in 1998, but granted in 2003? that was about he time SGI started laying off the people that would create Nvidia and 3Dfx... I believe ATi has been around much longer. But That means they missed 5 years of graphics cards.. 5 years!!!! That's the ENTIRE time 3DFX was actually selling cards plus some. That's much to long to be considered seriously in an industry where stuff was obsolete in 6 months for much of that same time period. This reaks of a "submarine" that was tweaked at the last minute to hijack everybody else that outdid them by leaps and bounds.

welcome back SGI by hlimethe3rd · 2006-10-25 00:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

So SGI has been reborn as a patent troll? Welcome to the party.

Re:welcome back SGI by c_forq · 2006-10-25 00:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

I submitted this yesterday after seeing it on OSNews, but my question was: is this becoming the new business strategy for technology companies that failed in their traditional business? Just on the heels of rejoining the NASDAQ and after a period of bankruptcy instead of a restructure or new plan they announce litigation. Is SGI going to use any capital gained to rejoin the table as a technological competitor, or are they following the steps of SCO?

--
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Re:welcome back SGI by displague · 2006-10-25 00:55 · Score: 2, Insightful

Patent Troll? Were they honestly hording patents or were they innovating?

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. I know nothing about the patent on hand, and whether or not it was obvious at the time, but I'm giving SGI the benefit of the doubt because of their cool blue Indigo systems.

My only question to SGI is why didn't you start defending the patent earlier? "Because we thought we were financially stable" won't make for a good answer.

I hear they make a good portion of their current income from real-estate leases to Google.

--
Marques Johansson
Re:welcome back SGI by timeOday · 2006-10-25 01:24 · 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?
Re:welcome back SGI by mikael · 2006-10-25 01:40 · Score: 4, Informative

The patent is mentioned in the OpenGL extension specifications color_buffer_float.txt

SGI owns US Patent #6,650,327, issued November 18, 2003. SGI
believes this patent contains necessary IP for graphics systems
implementing floating point (FP) rasterization and FP framebuffer
capabilities.

SGI's patent was filed June 16, 1998, and granted November 18, 2003

ATI did similar work at the same time ATI_pixel_format_float

The development history of ATI's document ranges from 9th June 2002 to 4th December 2002

Basically, ATI gets caught between SGI filing for a patent, and SGI having the patent granted. Although, given that SGI have been announcing the status of this patent for the past three years, it does seem odd that they are only sueing now. Maybe they are scared of the ATI/AMD merger, or see that ATI has more money now.

--
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Re:welcome back SGI by mike2R · 2006-10-25 01:50 · Score: 2, Informative

is this becoming the new business strategy for technology companies that failed in their traditional business?

I think it's inevtable. When a public company goes bankrupt, it has to be wound up or reconstituted in such a way as to give maximum value to its creditors and shareholders. If it's sitting on software patent assets that are potentially worth money then those assets must be realised.

--
This sig all sigs devours
Re:welcome back SGI by cgenman · 2006-10-25 02:14 · 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
Re:welcome back SGI by fistfullast33l · 2006-10-25 02:40 · 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.
Re:welcome back SGI by OakLEE · 2006-10-25 04:48 · Score: 2, Informative

I am an IP Lawyer and patents are not about just protecting stolen research, though it does. They are about protecting you investment in a device that is non-obvious and innovative (you got that part right). What this means is that even if ATI did invent this all by themselves, if SGI invented it before ATI, they are entitled to sue.

You are confusing patent law with trade secret law, which does protect from missapropriation and stealing, but requires that you keep your innovation secret, which you cannot do if you file a patent. The two laws are for the most part mutually exclusive.

--
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...

You suck SGI. by dpaluszek · 2006-10-25 00:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sorry SGI, you are done. Your products are done, all of your competition can bring better products to the table. This isn't 1998 where you brought these trendy cases and we all "ooed" over them.

Bye bye.

And so it begins... by gfxguy · 2006-10-25 00:54 · 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.

Re:And so it begins... by Pharmboy · 2006-10-25 02:00 · Score: 2, Informative

If you did a little googling, you would see that DEC sued Intel over patent infringement and for abuse a monopoly, along with a few others.

Here is another link you might find useful.

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:And so it begins... by HiThere · 2006-10-25 04:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sorry. This is unpleasant. That doesn't suffice to make it like SCO. So far there's no evidence that SGI didn't own the claimed patents. So far there's no evidence that SGI is going to refuse to say what it's suing about. Etc.

SCO is so much worse than any ordinary company that it's difficult to comprehend just how foul they are, and how foul the legal system is to allow them to use it so. SOMEBODY's got to be being paid off. It can't normally be THAT bad.

The SCO case is so bad that they have yet to clearly state what they are suing about. Currently it appears to be something about the AT&T contract with IBM. AT&T and IBM both deny that the contract means what SCO says it means, and under contract law that should mean that the case is immediately dismissed with prejudice (caution: IANAL). And yet it goes forward, spending IBM's and Novell's money. (O, Yes. SCO is paying it's lawyers with stolen money. Stolen from Novell.)

Do not compare SGI with SCO. SGI may well have a legitimate grievance.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

Not the first time by tjkslashdot · 2006-10-25 01:00 · 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....

Re:Huh? by ThosLives · 2006-10-25 01:03 · 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)

the real culprit: clueless legislators by theStorminMormon · 2006-10-25 01:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

When I read about stuff like this, it makes me annoyed. Not because any sense of fairness or ethics (companies don't have morals), but because of the wasted resources. Litigation is money spent without any production at the end. You pay a bunch of bloodsuckers to fight another bunch of bloodsuckers and either you take money from the other guy or the other guy takes money from you, but the only people guaranteed to get paid are the bloodsuckers.

Imagine if the money spent on spurious litigation went into actual R&D, capital investment for fabrication centers, engineer salaries, hell even advertising. Anything but litigation!

But as long as there's an avenue to make money this way, you can't really expect companies like SGI to behave any differently. You're providing a way for companies that are no long profitable (either because they have no product, e.g. SGI, or because they have an antiquate business model e.g. **AA) to leech off of the market instead of exiting it. Of course they're going to try to survive and not just go quietly into that good night. So, while I'm annoyed at this behavior, you have to realize that it's intellectual property laws that are the problem. We need fewer and simpler IP laws. Of course, trying to get lawmakers to pass fewer laws is like asking a competitive eater to "take it slow", and that's not even mentioning that the bloodsuckers aren't going to be happy to see yet another cash cow disappear anytime soon.

How long will it take for public outrage to really grow until real reform is made?

-stormin

--
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.

Re:Huh? by LizardKing · 2006-10-25 01:14 · Score: 2, Informative

SGI created OpenGL.

SGI Caught Wind of AMD's new Fusion? by AikonMGB · 2006-10-25 01:15 · Score: 2

Perhaps SGI caught wind of AMD/ATI's new "Fusion" CPU/GPU combination?

Aikon-

Just proves the old adage.... by Darth_brooks · 2006-10-25 01:16 · Score: 3, Informative

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue."

--
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.

Wait for a while... by Lonedar · 2006-10-25 01:20 · Score: 2

We shouldn't jump to conclusions so quickly, as it is possible that SGI is simply trying to gain a foothold in the market.

I would definitely welcome another competitor in the video card market.

A sad day... by FellowConspirator · 2006-10-25 01:22 · Score: 4, Interesting

SGI is late to the table to become a patent troll. If there's any lesson to be learned in the past 5 years in the tech world it's that a business plan built around litigation is no plan at all (unless you are a law firm, then you're basically printing your own money).

It's a shame too, SGI was a great company with some very good products too.

However, I would point out that it's not unexpected. One of the reasons that vendors of video cards don't provide hardware programming specs or open source drivers for their products has been for fear of litigation. It's been a prevalent rumor for years that many vendors feel that their products potentially run afoul of a bunch of patents and that's why they are so cagey with letting people understand how to program for their products and to get the best performance out of them. If SGI wins in this suit, expect a horrible blood-letting in the graphics adapter business and prices for premium technology to go up across the board.

Re:A sad day... by RAMMS+EIN · 2006-10-25 02:06 · Score: 2, Informative

``It's a shame too, SGI was a great company with some very good products too.''

Yes, and they gave to the Free software movement, too. XFS, OpenGL, and the STL, IIRC.

--
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.

SGI's income went to research by nadanumber · 2006-10-25 01:26 · Score: 5, Interesting

SGI always poured the lions share of its income into research, and to the best of my knowledge they, even now, continue to do so.

SGI is the company that today has the very fastest Linux computer - the Altix shared memory multiprocessing family - available at any price, really a technological marvel because it runs a single OS kernel and has memory architecture which is truly phenomenal - it scales better than any other multiprocessing/clustering solution.

So any defense of their patents, however 'unpopular' with the video gaming set, should be welcomed because it could help a company that we really owe a lot to in many ways get back into the game. Honestly.

They would not be a 'patent troll'. Don't forget, SGI open sources a LOT of its technology. Much more than most other hardware vendors. Much more.

I used to work at NASA and our division was largely an SGI shop, and yes, they were expensive, but at the time, there was nothing else out there that was comparable in ANY way. You won't ever find me saying anything bad about SGI except maybe that it would be great if they were cheaper.

Why? Because they are the best.

Re:SGI's income went to research by Copid · 2006-10-25 05:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

The difference is that the Altix is a shared memory machine and Blue Gene/L is a cluster with distributed memory. You can always make bigger and bigger clusters (although it is quite a technical trick to make them as large as BG/L), but shared memory machines like the Altix are are a different ball of wax. The difference is that an Altix 4000 can be called *a* computer more readily because it actually runs *one* instance of the OS across 512 processors.

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An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"

Classic case of innovator's dilemma? by defile · 2006-10-25 01:32 · 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.

Re:Classic case of innovator's dilemma? by SirKron · 2006-10-25 02:58 · 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.
Re:Classic case of innovator's dilemma? by Doctor+Memory · 2006-10-25 03:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

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

SGI top talent, seeing future products cancelled and current projects crippled by cost-cutting measures, see the writing on the wall and jump ship.

Fixed that for ya...

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Just junk food for thought...

Re:Huh? by wrf3 · 2006-10-25 01:40 · Score: 2, Informative

Their patent is a little more specific than this. A company called Chromatics had floating point hardware in their CX 1536 graphics engine back in the 80's (so named for it's 1536 x 1152 resolution) and used floating-point to represent the initial coordinates. What they didn't do, but SGI does, is store computed pixel attributes in the framebuffer in floating point.

Re:The solution is easy by Dachannien · 2006-10-25 01:42 · 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.

Re:Huh? by jcr · 2006-10-25 01:42 · 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

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The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."

Re:Huh? by jcr · 2006-10-25 01:45 · Score: 2, Informative

I've yet to see a patent that isn't anymore than an extension of an idea using a previous technology and applying it to a more contemporary one.

Try looking up the patent on Xerography, then. People come up with novel solutions all the time, and many of them apply for and get patents on them.

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."

This is why they dont want to open the drivers... by jonwil · 2006-10-25 01:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

I am sure that if NVIDIA and ATI were to open their drivers or specs, it would make it much easier for companies with patents to go after them.

AMD's takeover of ATI is now DONE... by Svartalf · 2006-10-25 01:53 · Score: 2

As of today, they've announced that they've completed the merger. Now begins the integration of the companies in question...

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I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas

Re:Paradigm Shift by LWATCDR · 2006-10-25 02:13 · 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.

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See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.

Re:Floating point in graphics hardware is obvious by AKAImBatman · 2006-10-25 02:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Edison's patent on the incandescent light bulb was ruled invalid.

You are highly confused. The incandescent light bulb was one of the few patents of Edison's that was not overturned. In fact, Edison strengthed his case by buying off previous patents for similar work, making sure that there was an unbroken chain of Intellectual Property. So when Sawyer and Man attempted to challenge Edison's patent, they had to do so on addendums they added to their own patent application. The Supreme Court found that Sawyer and Man's claims were too broad, and that their addendum was an afterthought rather than core to their invention. Thus Edison's patent was upheld as valid.

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Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade

Zombie companies by aero6dof · 2006-10-25 02:23 · Score: 5, Funny

SGI is back from the dead and is now trying to feast on living companies. If that doesn't fit the halloween season I don't know what does.

Re:Let me be the first... by gr8whitesavage · 2006-10-25 02:27 · Score: 3, Funny

to welcome our new rasterization and floating point framebuffering overlords!

You guys are really falling out of practice here.

Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-10-25 02:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

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

Ok, so maybe SGI did it first. Then let's give them a nice gold-plated medal or something. Regardless of how much time and money you spent training for the competition, winning a race shouldn't give you the right to charge an arbitrary fee to anyone else who wants to run that course in the future (or prevent others from doing it at all).

Re:It's not the legislators who are clueless by theStorminMormon · 2006-10-25 02:41 · Score: 2, Informative

Do you have any facts to back up this claim? I know that some legislators are lawyers, but in the past whenever I've contacted my own representatives (which I've done many times) I've been struck by how utterly clueless their staff seemed to be. (And, by the way, Senator Allen R-VA is a lawyer who, judging by his staff and subsequent form letter, has no idea what net neutrality even means.) Furthermore, law is a specialized profession. You don't just have to be a lawyer to really understand this, you have to be a lawyer with at least a rudimentary understanding of technology who also specializes in IP law (as opposed to tax law, criminal law, family law, constitutional law, etc.) How many legislators fit that bill? I think you're drastically over-simplifying this case. I find that annoying because every time some wide-eyed fanatic claims "all the legistlators are lawyers and teh lawyers are all out to get us!" he or she takes away from serious analysis of a serious problem. No one is going to take you seriously if you sling around unfounded assumptions, and that gets in the way of people like me who actually want to change things instead of just be melodramatic about them.

In any case, I visited this site: Congress Merge to do a search of how many members of congress were lawyers. I first did a search for "lawyer" in the profession field. I got 6 hits (3R, 3D, if you're curious). Then I did a search for "attorney" and got 193 hits. Assuming no overlap, we've got 199 lawyers in congress (102D to 90R, if you're curious, and I'm assuming 1I). Congress has 635 members (435 in the House, 200 in the Senate).

So out of 635 members, 199 were lawyers or attorneys at any point in the career. That's 31%. Hardly enough to say, in my opinion, that "Legislators are by and large lawyers". 31% of those are lawyers, how many do you think are IP lawyers? Sorry to rain on your simplistic world, but it's more complex than just "teh lawyers are everywhere!"

-stormin

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The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.

Begun this Patent War is by jmorris42 · 2006-10-25 02:55 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think we can now see the first salvo of the Patent Wars we have all feared were coming. It seems every dying company decides that they need to 'monitize their patent portfolio.' as soon as the customers disappear. And SGI will be horrible in their death throes. Thankfully most of Xerox was bought instead of us all having to suffer through their death spasms because they had even more patents to abuse when they were dying, although by now many of the most dangerous ones are probably expired.

But this is still unfocused thrashing. Wait until they, like SCO, sucumb to the temptations of the monopolist in Redmond to focus their attack.

The patent system doesn't need reform, it needs to be scraped and rethought. I'd say cap em at 1000 per year. With a number that low only real inventions would make it through and the number in any particular industry would be small enough anyone in that industry could be expected to be aware of them.

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Democrat delenda est

Re:Begun this Patent War is by jmorris42 · 2006-10-25 08:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

> A cap won't work. They will simply file the extra patents using a shell company.

You misunderstand. I didn't mean a 1000 limit per entity. I meant 1000 per year, total. As in patent numbers could be reworked as (SOMEPREFIX)YYYYNNN. Really, when you think of 'invention' you think of real inventions, the stuff that is clever enough to warrant a government monopoly, most people do not envision the crap that gets issued nowadays. I'm saying restrict em to the big ones that nobody would dispute. The light bulb, vulcanized rubber, major new drugs, etc. There isn't 1000 per year of those, so my solution would still allow hundreds of bogus patents to be issued, but would reduce the problem to managable proportions.

If one wanted to REALLY cut em down require them to issue from Congress as individually passed bills with a stipulation that they always be by roll call vote. Would probably require an Amendment, but it would put some accountability into the system, slow the process to a crawl and generally gum up the works. Downside is that it would hopelessly politicize the process.

So leave the patent office and their examiners in the loop, just force a cap on em. And here is another idea I just had. Change the submission fee schedule to prevent the flood of dodgy apps. Require a $100,000 (cash or bond) to submit an application. If the idea really is patent worthy return the money minus some small administrative fee, otherwise keep the whole wad as a disincentive to wasting the examiners time.

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Democrat delenda est

Ridiculous Patent by logicnazi · 2006-10-25 04:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Go read the background of this patent. The patent itself admits that there was plenty of graphics prior art that used floating point values to do the calculations. All they are claiming a patent on is implementing this system in hardware! And they include a line in their patent about how it has now become possible/desierable to implement the floating point stuff in hardware.

To be fair it seems their 'advancement' is that they kept the data in floating point format in the framebuffer rather than converting it to fixed point. Now their implementation of this approach probably contained some genuine advancement but just the notion of doing everything in floating point is pretty fucking obvious.

What I don't understand about this is that surely SGI has some much more substantial patents in their pockets. Is the problem that they gave them away with OpenGL/don't want to scare people away from opengl?

My personal guess is that SGI isn't serious about pursuing this particular patent infringement. Rather they are using a very broad and simple patent to go on a fishing expedition about ATI's hardware. During discovery on this patent SGI will be able to get details about how ATI's hardware/software works that they would otherwise not be able to get. I suspect SGI thinks ATI is infringing on a more substantial patent somewhere and is going to use the discovery during this case to find out.

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If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:

Re:Well its 2006 and SGI are still here. by tjkslashdot · 2006-10-25 05:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

Between 1998 and now, SGI has had to rent space out to Google to stay afloat, has been delisted, gone through at least three separate downsizings (including several executive changes), and has filed for bankruptcy. The point is, SGI has tried the "sue to keep afloat" pattern before, and it didn't work then. I doubt very much it'll work now. SGI produces fast Linux boxes, for sure, but it competes in a very hard market.

Probably inevitable by JakiChan · 2006-10-25 05:54 · Score: 3, Interesting

ATI and nVidia are chock full of ex-SGI employees. For example, a good chunk of my friends from the MIPS division are at ATI. There's also the story of how they got rid of the desktop graphics division. The story goes that the entire team was pulled into the cafe. As they walked in their badges were taken. They were then told that some would be going to nVidia and some would be going home. So there is probably a whole bunch of SGI guys at nVidia as well. I wouldn't be surprised if some SGI-patented ideas leaked in....

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"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."

Corporate apologists eat balls. by Generic+Player · 2006-10-25 06:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Quit making up nonsense excuses to forgive corporations who shit on their customers. The specs required to write video drivers do not tell anyone anything that makes it easier to sue for patent infringment. The list of features on the nvidia and ati websites gives as much info for patent trolls as programming docs would. It just tells you what functionality is supported, and how to tell the card to do it.

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