Firm Sues Sony Over Cell Processor

An anonymous reader writes that earlier this month, Sony received word of a lawsuit from a Newport Beach company called Parallel Processing. They've filed against the electronics giant alleging that the Cell processor, used in the PlayStation 3, infringes on a patent they own. They've made the somewhat outrageous demand that every infringing chip (and console) be 'impounded and destroyed'. From the article at Next Generation: "The patent, 'Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory' was issued in October 1991. It describes a high-speed computer that breaks down a program 'into smaller concurrent processes running in different parallel processors' and resynchronizes the program for faster processing times ... Parallel Processing said that Sony's alleged actions have caused 'irreparable harm and monetary damage' to the company."

Comments

Re:What's next?

[AKAImBatman]

No. Their patent appears to be directed at a specific subset of multiprocessing known as MIMD (Multiple Instruction Multiple Data) processors. The key to their "invention" is a processor that sits in front of the various processing elements and divvies up the chores to ensure that all processor elements are well fed.

To be perfectly honest, I don't understand why they're suing Sony and not IBM. I suppose it's probably tactical, especially since Sony is actually selling the chips as opposed to IBM who's mostly talking about them at this point. (IBM fabs the chips on Sony's behalf.)

It's hard to be sure, but this sounds like a patent troll case. The only thing that muddies the waters a bit is that this "International Parallel Machines, Inc." actually exists and sells products:

http://www.ipmiplc.com/