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ITC Rules Apple Does Not Infringe S3 Graphics Patents
First time accepted submitter boley1 writes "According to Cnet — S3 Graphics's case collapsed in their ITC suit, with the ITC ruling that Apple does not infringe on any of S3's patents. A big blow to HTC according to the report."
So much for HTC buying a warchest; according to the ruling it looks like AMD/ATI actually owned the patents in question.
maybe more companies should follow apple's example and actually try to innovate something, rather than buying someone else's IP so you can deploy against competitors once you've stolen their work and they are suing you.
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
This probably makes the texture compression patent (S3TC) invalid. Now it can be safely implemented in Mesa.
I read it as AMD claimed to own the patents in question but the motion claiming such was denied when the case was found for Apple without needing it. I don't think there was a decision made regarding the ownership.
When did that happen for the last time in known history? ITC has one purpose only -- to protect US companies from competition.
When did that happen for the last time in known history? ITC has one purpose only -- to protect US companies from competition.
It will come back to bite them eventually. Other companies are doing the same like getting apple banned in Taiwan. By setting up this framework of protectionism now they will suffer when being banned in China becomes worse for multinationals than being banned in the USA
S3TC is very old, I remember this being a bragged about feature over 10 years ago.
It seems like since video cards now have more than 16MB of video memory, S3TC is no longer viable except for low-precision (eg bump mapping.) High precision textures are used in the iPhone because they directly copy uncompressed lossless images to and from the video memory, and if anything they were already compressed as jpeg or png.
It's completely possible that games use S3TC, but I'm not sure if the OpenGL implementation on the iPhone actually uses it as it's not a core part of the OpenGL standard, rather it's always been an extension. When the hardware doesn't support an extension the software is supposed to resort to not using the extension.
silo doors are opening... Steve Jobs's thermonuclear war is starting.
HTC thought it could buy some patents and defend itself? Afro-American please! It's a puny gnat compared to the mighty arsenal Apple will unleash on their asses. Those S3 patents, they are like McBain's safety goggles -- they do nothing!
The US-ITC rejects almost all such requests, so this is no surprise and doesn't necessarily mean the case has collapsed.
Some patent holders surely use these procedures just to smear product developers and scare investors - in the hope of a easy cash settlement.
More about the ITC:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/United_States_International_Trade_Commission
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
When did that happen for the last time in known history? ITC has one purpose only -- to protect US companies from competition.
It will come back to bite them eventually. Other companies are doing the same like getting apple banned in Taiwan. By setting up this framework of protectionism now they will suffer when being banned in China becomes worse for multinationals than being banned in the USA
The article you are linking to actually talks about banning APPLES (the fruit) imported from the US in Taiwan. You probably wanted to refer to the ban of selling some Apple products in South Korea, which is seeked by Samsung. This ban, however, did not happen so far it seems.
This is really a thought that's neither here nor there....
But, if USA were to take a loan with the World Bank, they might have to close shop.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
The ITC that is!
Sorry, khomunikations hard.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
No it does not still stand. The evidence that supported the argument has been found to be untrue. The argument is no longer an argument it is a blindly asserted opinion, that even in the face of evidence to the contrary (samsung failing to do exactly what you predict) you still maintain to be the truth.
If the S3 ViRGE has anything to do with any patents in question, I hope S3 burns in hell.
The S3 ViRGE was the biggest peice of shit video card ever made in the world. I bought an S3 ViRGE DX thinking it would be cool. Played terminal velocity at about 13 FPS and thought to myself WTF? Oh well, it was okay for 2D.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_ViRGE#Support
"silo doors are opening... Steve Jobs's thermonuclear war is starting."
Steve Jobs is dead. He lost his life. He has no interest in this.
Apple, the rotten fruit company does.
The principle is the same though. If the U.S. International Trade Court consistently rules in favor of U.S. companies, then it is highly likely that the trade courts of other nations will rule for their domestic companies. Apple sue Samsung in U.S. and win, Samsung sue Apple in Korea and win. Apple sue HTC in U.S. and win, HTC sue Apple in Taiwan and win. It is probably no coincidence that the first company to stand up to Microsoft's Android tax has been a U.S. company, rather than the foreign device manufacturers.
As regards this particular case, this is just one ruling in response to an appeal of a previous ruling, and this ruling will in turn be appealed. And even if Apple win the appeal, it still leaves HTC with hundreds of patents from the rest of their patent portfolio, plus the 265 S3 patents they acquired, plus the new patents they got from Google. They only need to win once to be able to block sales of infringing hardware. And they can't not win some of the time - if the U.S. ITC find in favor of Apple over a foreign company hundreds of times, then the international patent system is going to tear itself apart, starting with Taiwan and Korea.
(Meanwhile, China has practically no intellectual property or patent enforcement, and is rewarded with the fastest growing economy in the world, despite a prolonged global recession. Ahh.....)
Up until this epoch ruling I was only on the VIRGE of buying one! But was afraid that it would suddenly become illegal to use one without paying ATI first. But wtf I can't afford it anyway.....so who am I kidding ...I am an opensores cheapskate.
Like not paying SCO the 600 plus ransom to use Linux on a multi processor machine as a server or whatever. I guess my Ann D Roid phone is in question now too...just maybe I should see if it will boot Phone7 so I can get away without paying for 500 ridiculous Microsoft patents And God only knows how many IPHONE ones!
... if HTC, Apple and all the others spent their time and money making better products instead of on War Chests?
If they competed on the strength of their merit instead of on the size of their legal funds?
I'll crawl back into my little dreamworld now.
Tarald - The Lord of Smeg
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on
because the GPUs in these devices are made by a company named Imagination Technologies (I elieve they bought powerVR some time ago),
PowerVR has always been part of Imagination Technologies (which was formerly called "Videologic").
The bits about AMDs motion is in the second to last paragraph.
The actual finding
Anyways, give it a read before discussing what it says.
but wait, this is slashdot, rtfa? nah
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
I remember one of my tech friends being envious of my 4 MB goodness and my "3d" walls in Dungeon Keeper.
Ah the good ole days!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Samsung isn't trying to block the iPhone in South Korea. Is because they don't want to look like assholes? Is it because they want to look like the better company? Is it because they are afraid of losing on their home turf? Who knows.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Hahaha, you biased anti-Apple moron. You freaks are like the bane of the human race. One company innovates while everyone else copies them and sells their products at half the price, and you scream bloody murder when someone tries to take away your cheap, ill-gotten toys.
And here we see the Apple fanboi in his native environment. This specimen is particularly magnificent in his distortion field immersion. Notice how it believes that one company is responsible for all innovation in the technology world -- this marking indicates that it is likely an older fanboi, maybe around since the 90s or early 2000s, but not old (or, perhaps, knowledgeable) enough to know of any technology happenings predating those times.
Also notice the way its shrill cry refers to all other technology as "cheap, ill-gotten toys." This is a defensive posture, helping it to justify its own purchases of hardware with ludicrously high profit margins. The cry helps to drown out any sounds of other types of fanbois singing the praises of their own chosen consumer electronics so the fanboi never has to accept the fact that there are other good pieces of hardware in existence. It also serves to protect other Apple fanbois that share the same distortion field from ever having to make this acknowledgment.
A group of these Apple fanbois is known as a "bushel," and can be commonly seen at Apple stores, Mac World conferences, and on internet forums. Bushels of these fanbois are known to make nearly every discussion they participate in unbearably annoying for people who don't give a fuck about what logo is on their hardware as long as it gets the job done.
It's not that easy though. A company like Apple, probably does a substantial amount of business in countries like Korea and Taiwan, and I'm not talking about selling products. Apple probably buys far more components from companies in those countries than they bringing in money selling phones. Locking the iPhone out of some of those countries won't cost Apple much in sales, but it might really hurt some of the manufacturers if Apple decides to move their business elsewhere.
Bushels of these fanbois are known to make nearly every discussion they participate in unbearably annoying for people who don't give a fuck about what logo is on their hardware as long as it gets the job done.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Some of my friends are diehard Apple users, and we've just had to learn to agree not only to disagree, but to simply not discuss Apple products at all. Kinda like politics and religion, when you get right down to it.
A truly closed mind is a remarkable artifact.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.