NVIDIA Sues Qualcomm and Samsung Seeking To Ban Import of Samsung Phones

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NVIDIA Sues Qualcomm and Samsung Seeking To Ban Import of Samsung Phones

Posted by samzenpus on Friday September 5, 2014 @12:08AM from the sue-baby-sue dept.

Calibax writes NVIDIA has filed complaints against Samsung and Qualcomm at the ITC and in the U.S. District court in Delaware. The suit alleges that the companies are both infringing NVIDIA GPU patents covering technology including programmable shading, unified shaders and multithreaded parallel processing. NVIDIA is seeking damages and a ban on U.S. import of a number of devices with Snapdragon and Exynos processors until there is an agreement on licensing.

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Out of ideas? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:12 · Score: 1

Sue the competition!
Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:12 · Score: -1

Sort of, but most horse porn is actually one horse/one human for safety reasons. Horse cocks are extremely girthy and there is much preparation for both sucking off the horse and letting it fuck you, not to mention there's really not much more than one human can do on a single horse, i for one would definitely never put my cock near a horse's mouth, and I've seen too many people kicked by horses to want to sneak up on its rear end while some else is sucking it off, vaginal penetration (man on horse) is possible but also extremely risky and dangerous, and requires a very calm mare. Also, if you can think of any possible way to have two dudes fucking the horse's ass AND it's vagina, let me know because the logistics are complicated and I'm not a gymnast. Not to mention that horses are notoriously difficult to force into working together. I grew up on a farm and I never ever saw a horse gangbang, however although I'm not gay I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't utterly fascinated by watching the horse cocks go from soft to utterly gigantic.
1. Re:Really? by Tmackiller · 2014-09-05 00:31 · Score: 2
  
  I..I, um... what? Back to /b/ with you.
  
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  sudo apt-get install sl && sl
Say what now? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:16 · Score: 0

The title to this post is very misleading read as-is. I think there might be some punctuation missing.
1. Re: Say what now? by Selivanow · 2014-09-05 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  Grammar has no place here.
  
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  -- ...trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. -Bruce Schneier
2. Re:Say what now? by koreanbabykilla · 2014-09-05 02:10 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Are you gonna fix your retarded headline samzenpus? Do you even read the dumb shit you write before you add it to the front page? I wish everyone would just move to soylentnews, much better editing over there.
3. Re:Say what now? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 02:17 · Score: 0
  
  People who live in glass houses...
4. Re:Say what now? by koreanbabykilla · 2014-09-05 02:24 · Score: 1
  
  I am not paid to edit a largish news site...
5. Re:Say what now? by soccerisgod · 2014-09-05 02:38 · Score: 1
  
  I wish everyone would just move to soylentnews, much better editing over there.
  Why? Are you so bored you have to come whine here if you have a better place? I don't get it.
  
  --
  If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
6. Re:Say what now? by jeffmflanagan · 2014-09-05 03:11 · Score: 1
  
  What's not to get? He's trying to drive traffic to a non-corporate site that's trying to be what Slashdot once was before Dice came along.
7. Re:Say what now? by koreanbabykilla · 2014-09-05 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  I like the comments here, and there are currently not enough commenters over there. Better editing, but way less comments, so I use both. doesn't mean I cant talk shit. This is the internet after all...
8. Re:Say what now? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 04:21 · Score: 0
  
  largish
  LOL
9. Re:Say what now? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  largish
  LOL
  Largs. A small but important town in Scotland with links to an armada able to invade the whole of Europe. It may sound funny to you, but none of the victims are laughing any more.
10. Re:Say what now? by koreanbabykilla · 2014-09-05 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  I'm glad I could brighten your day :D
When by invictusvoyd · 2014-09-05 00:19 · Score: 1

O when Am I going to get my free software phone with free software cellular network :(
1. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:23 · Score: 0
  
  Never
2. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:26 · Score: 0
  
  Just because it's free software doesn't give you the right to violate patents.
3. Re:When by Arker · 2014-09-05 00:31 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Unfortunately that is blocked indefinitely by the failure of the court system to understand that software is math. I used to expect the next generation of judges at least would get it, but seeing a whole new generation coming out that is even less technically savvy than their predecessors kind of dashes that hope.
  
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  Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
4. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:37 · Score: 0
  
  In Soviet USA Patents violates You!
5. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:38 · Score: 0
  
  Because phones and cellular networks are entirely software
6. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:40 · Score: 0
  
  Fortunately that is blocked indefinitely by the triumph of the court system to understand that software not math.
  Fixed that for you.
7. Re:When by qbast · 2014-09-05 00:57 · Score: 1
  
  Ah yes, and every material invention is just application of physics.
8. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:59 · Score: 0
  
  You loose.
  There is the Curry-Howard correspondence proof that shows software IS math.
9. Re:When by gl4ss · 2014-09-05 01:03 · Score: 1
  
  Because phones and cellular networks are entirely software
  pretty much yeahm they wouldn't do any parallel gpu processing unless instructed with software and they hardly invented parallel processing as such.
  they're just pissed off because nobody wants to use NVIDIA's soc.. coming soon, watch samsung release a phone with nvidia designed chip, as a token release - and bury it with their other phone releases. kind of how they produced windows phones for surprisingly long - not that they put any effort into selling them or anything but at least they got something back on paper from their licensing of stuff for android use from MS while they worked out if they need to actually pay MS for using android or not(what I'm saying is, that MS used lawsuit threats etc to keep them producing windows phones while they figured out that they could sink Nokia and buy Nokia to keep at least one company producing windows phones. a shit tactic but there you have it.).
  
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  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
10. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:33 · Score: 0
  
  Software is math like engineering is physics and biology is chemistry.
11. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 02:11 · Score: 0
  
  Yep, owning an idea sure is nonsensical all right.
12. Re:When by Zero__Kelvin · 2014-09-05 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  Which do you not understand? Software or math?
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
13. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 04:14 · Score: 0
  
  Something fucked up your letters
14. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 04:41 · Score: 0
  
  Your mom is loose.
15. Re:When by Ravaldy · 2014-09-05 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  Software is math but you could also say the same about anything that was ever invented. At the end of the day everything is math.
  One of my observations over years of watching and listening to software patent trolling is that nobody makes the difference between actual research and the coding. Coding is coding and implementing an existing concept to another existing concept is just more coding UNLESS research is required to achieve the final objective. The key here is that there should be an amount of research required to qualify for a patent. I don't claim to know much about patent qualification but I do know that you need to provide proof of research, trial & error as well as a prototype in the form drawing or schematics.
16. Re:When by Arker · 2014-09-05 14:40 · Score: 0
  
  "Software is math but you could also say the same about anything that was ever invented." No, you could not. At least not truthfully. Everything *can be described* using math but not everything *is* math. On the other hand, everything a computer can do, is math. Physical changes, excluding electrical changes which signify numbers? Zero, none, nada. Your printer puts ink on paper? Yes it does. In response to a number calculated and sent to it by the computer. The screen shows pictures? Yes it does - in response to numbers calculated and sent to it by the computer. Everything a computer does, is math, period.
  
  --
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  Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
17. Re:When by Ravaldy · 2014-09-08 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  So your telling me there's a difference between putting intellectual knowledge in a computer program versus on paper?
  At the end of the day research is research. Whether is results in a material good or not is irrelevant.
Easy by ArcadeMan · 2014-09-05 00:22 · Score: 4, Funny

NVIDIA Sues Qualcomm, and Samsung Seeking To Ban Import of Samsung Phones

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Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
1. Re:Easy by CajunArson · 2014-09-05 00:24 · Score: 2
  
  Samsung: So big that it patent trolls itself.
  
  --
  AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
2. Re:Easy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 05:49 · Score: 0
  
  Funny, but that was once true at Sony. Their music division/subsidiaries threaten legal action against their electronic division for making products that "supported piracy".
Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:29 · Score: -1

Here comes the parade of Samsung fanboys to make up memes that downplay the significance of the patents in question, because clearly Samsung has never violated laws in order to take over a market...
1. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:04 · Score: 0
  
  I do not see a parade of Samsung fanboys.
2. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:18 · Score: 0
  
  Just wait for the Apple fanboys to start pointing fingers.
3. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by bytestorm · 2014-09-05 01:27 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I am not a lawyer, but I find it hard to believe Samsung is violating any of Nvidia's patents directly by using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 and 805 in a product. They received the part and associated driver software from QCOM as a final product and all components and features therein are protected from patent violations. Just like you can't be sued for violating Nvidia's patents by using an AMD GPU which has Nvidia-patented features in your PC, Samsung is protected by purchasing the part from QCOM. Nvidia could block further sales of the Snapdragon CPU to Samsung, but not sales of derived products; even though to to the end consumer it amounts to the same thing. So unless Samsung is violating their agreement with QCOM by enabling features they didn't license from QCOM, NV can't touch them here.
  
  Similar deal with Exynos (Samsung's SOC) since it licenses the IP involved directly from ARM and Imagination Technologies (Mali and PowerVR GPUs respectively). Unless Samsung's legal team is collectively idiots and/or assholes, they should be protected by their upstream licensing agreements.
  
  Then again, NV is never going to sue ARM because they would be in a seriously shitty position to renew *their* ARM licenses (if ARM didn't just terminate them on the spot) and then ARM would laugh all the way to the bank about who isn't shipping products.
  
  Based on that, it's my opinion that Samsung shouldn't be involved in this lawsuit and Nvidia just pulled them in because that's where the money is.
4. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by andydread · 2014-09-05 01:29 · Score: 0
  
  spoken from a true iTard apple fanboy.
5. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Richard_at_work · 2014-09-05 01:36 · Score: 1
  
  You need to brush up on your understanding of patent law - people and entities merely using infringing items most certainly can be sued...
6. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:42 · Score: 0
  
  Back in the early days of automobile manufacturing there was a competitor in the market that threatened to sue buyers of allegedly infringing cars because they were infringing the patent by using the vehicle. All perfectly allowed in our screwed up patent system.
7. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:44 · Score: -1
  
  The reality distortion field of the Apple iTard who wrote that causes him to hallucinate any number of things. Arguing facts with his ilk is an exercise in futility.
8. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by bytestorm · 2014-09-05 01:46 · Score: 1
  
  I'm specifically referencing exhaustion/first sale doctrine. I believe that should apply, but as you pointed out, I could be wrong.
9. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by jrumney · 2014-09-05 01:46 · Score: 2
  
  I am not a lawyer, but I find it hard to believe Samsung is violating any of Nvidia's patents directly by using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 and 805 in a product. They received the part and associated driver software from QCOM as a final product
  And thats where your idea of this business starts to unravel. Without the drivers, it could be that the Snapdragon does not violate any of those patents, any more than a bare Intel CPU violates the Amazon 1-click patent. And the same could be true for the software - without the hardware to run on, maybe it is not violating any patents (some would argue that this is, or should be, always true of all software). Generally, licensing or downloading of drivers is completely separate from purchasing of parts (this is not like retail PC peripherals, where the drivers come on a CD in the box). Only when Samsung puts them together in a product with certain features, does it start infringing.
  Also, it is very common for patents to be the responsibility of the manufacturer of an end product, with "license included" variants of a component often being significantly more expensive than licensing the patents yourself if you are a big enough company to have the army of lawyers necessary to deal with the negotiations.
10. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Richard_at_work · 2014-09-05 02:21 · Score: 1
  
  That only applies where the patent owner is the one selling the item, which is not what we are talking about here - check out the following line from that Wikipedia article:
  
  A patent gives the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing into the U.S. the patented invention during the term of the patent
  See the emphasis I have added.
  Where a patented item is being sold by a third party to another third party, no exhaustion of rights exists - both parties are liable because both parties are individually breaching the patent holders rights.
11. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 02:23 · Score: 0
  
  Oh, iTard... so clever! You took a stupid name a 12-year old calls someone on the playground and put a lower-case "i" on the front of it!
  Very inspired.
12. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 02:25 · Score: 0
  
  Patent exhaustion requires that a license has been paid for. Anyone then buying a product that contains the patented IP from the company that bought a license can rely on that license if they are sued.
  That isn't the case here.
13. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 03:12 · Score: 0
  
  QCOM will then sue nvidia. I give it about 2 weeks. QCOM loves them some patents and they have a fairly deep library to pull it off too.
  My guess is nvidia wanted some GSM/CDMA/LTE/802.11 love and QCOM threw down its terms and they didnt like it. So they sued. As they are pretty much locked out of the mobile space without that.
  Your understanding is also wrong. Many have used this tactic before. Specifically on QCOM.
  In about a year they will 'come to terms' that are 'not disclosed'.
14. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by bytestorm · 2014-09-05 03:17 · Score: 1
  
  Ok, I think I now see where you are coming from here, as well as AC below you. Since Qualcomm didn't have a license, Samsung couldn't have triggered patent exhaustion because Qualcomm never had a license to exhaust. It's then open to court interpretation whether or not Samsung should be liable for use of the patent.
  
  The difference between this case and Quanta v. LG (2008) is that Qualcomm didn't have a patent license to sell their part. Even if Samsung is not practicing the patent itself, they might still be liable. This is then the part that confuses me: if Qualcomm acquires a license for historical sales, wouldn't Samsung again be protected from infringement?
  
  Thank you all for straightening out my confusion.
15. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by bytestorm · 2014-09-05 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  That sounds amazingly convoluted and backward, but I don't doubt that's how it works.
  
  However, if Qualcomm sells Samsung a part without licenses and separately licenses/sells/supports the driver software without licenses (I am dangerously assuming Samsung didn't write their own), conditionally saying the driver cannot be used with the part because that would be in violation of the patent, then Samsung uses them together and distributes it, why would not Qualcomm go to town on Samsung in the spirit of cover-your-ass? They'd have to be in collusion to commit patent fraud. But if Qualcomm licensed the driver to Samsung for use with the part, the two together seem like patent exhaustion would have to apply, unless, like you said, Samsung assumed responsibility for paying Qualcomm's patent royalties and fees. Samsung wouldn't be using the patent directly, Samsung would be using a part that uses the patent.
  
  I guess fundamentally I am misapprehending how you can somehow sell a product or combination of products as fit for purpose that are covered by patents and yet not assume patent license liability. Thanks for your insight on how this whole thing works.
16. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Dixie_Flatline · 2014-09-05 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  Some of the devices are powered by Samsung's Exynos chips, so Samsung probably stepped on the patents there. That's what I got out of it. Remember that Samsung doesn't just use other people's stuff--they do a lot of their own manufacturing when it suits them.
17. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by Fjandr · 2014-09-05 15:02 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, if Qualcomm negotiated for past use, Samsung would be protected from suit.
18. Re:Here come the Samsung fanboys... by jrumney · 2014-09-05 15:19 · Score: 1
  
  Business to business commerce is fundamentally different than consumer commerce. If you buy something as a consumer, it is reasonable to expect that all licensing etc is taken care of, and there are laws to protect you from liability (plus it would be prohibitively expensive to go after all the individual consumers rather than the manufacturer). But business to business, they can contract how they want when it comes to patents that only cover specific uses of a product, not the manufactured product itself. There is no collusion to avoid patents, Qualcomm merely states in their contract that the purchase of their part does not include third party patent licenses that may be required for certain usage of the product. It is then up to Samsung to do their homework and find out what patents they need to license. They may also offer patent indemnification at a higher part price, but for a large company like Samsung with its own staff of patent lawyers, and its own patents that can be cross licensed, it will almost always be cheaper to handle the licensing themselves.
Switching to AMD by StormReaver · 2014-09-05 00:31 · Score: 5, Informative

Thankfully, the Open Source AMD video driver has progressed enough to use it for normal computing. I've been using it on cards I already had laying around, and it performs very well for daily use. It performs much better than Nouveau (which isn't surprising, since AMD released full specifications, and nVidia requires complete clean-room reverse engineering), and integrates into a Linux desktop cleaner than the nVidia proprietary driver (nVidia destroys the boot display, for example).
Now I have enough motivation to no longer use nVidia. Thank you, nVidia, for helping AMD gain some ground.
1. Re:Switching to AMD by Lord+Maud'Dib · 2014-09-05 00:40 · Score: 1
  
  Well said. I feel dirty now that I had to buy an Nvidia GPU recently because the software package I use only supports CUDA acceleration :(
2. Re:Switching to AMD by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:56 · Score: 0
  
  1) Kepler doesn't need clean-room. They open sourced this for the Jetson TK1 boards.
  2) The FOSS GPU driver's not quite there yet for MOST people. It can do many things "fine" but it can't yet handle the same workloads NVidia's cards are doing right now on Linux.
  3) This is going to be interesting...the bulk of the Adreno hails from Radeon, due to the fact that the bulk of it was what Qualcomm BOUGHT from AMD when they'd decided that mobile stuff was not the space AMD wanted to be in after absorbing ATI.
3. Re:Switching to AMD by jones_supa · 2014-09-05 01:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Rather surprisingly, I have also been quite happy with the developments of the open source Radeon driver under Linux. Works great and the performance is excellent.
4. Re:Switching to AMD by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:44 · Score: 0
  
  I can only hope Linux development for their cards improves over the next few years. Nvidya is just that bit better than them, but the distance is closing in more and more.
  And now that both of their markets, CPU and GPU, are combined, it should hopefully prove more fruitful as well for embedded devices.
  More competition is always welcome.
5. Re:Switching to AMD by ChunderDownunder · 2014-09-05 03:34 · Score: 1
  
  +5 Informative???
  We're talking about mobile device SoCs here, where AMD don't even compete.
6. Re:Switching to AMD by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 03:55 · Score: 0
  
  Not entirely true. They compete in the tablet and ultralight laptop spaces, with a very good offering, in fact. It's just x86-based instead of ARM, which means that a lot of manufacturers ignore it because the ARM ecosystem is better established in mobile. As far as I know, they don't offer anything capable of working in a phone, though.
7. Re:Switching to AMD by tlhIngan · 2014-09-05 03:57 · Score: 2
  
  Qualcomm's GPU core, Adreno, is actually something Qualcomm purchased from ATi/AMD when they spun off their mobile division. Long ago ATi was doing mobile GPUs before NVidia and Intel were doing them (and before they became commonplace when graphics were still mostly software driven).
  Anyhow, I suppose NVidia was in trouble - they had a popular SoC and their subsequent ones have failed to capitalize on it (remember when practically all Android tablets had NVidia Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 SoCs?).
8. Re:Switching to AMD by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 08:07 · Score: 0
  
  Nope.
  Tegra has always been a bit of an outsider in the Android market.
Interesting article on Semiaccurate about this by edxwelch · 2014-09-05 00:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

Previously, Nvidia said that it would license it's Kepler GPU cores to third parties. Semiaccurate maintains that this licensing program was in fact bogus and was conceived purely to justify future patent trolling activities. Semiaccurate also claims that
Nvidia tried to "shakedown" Apple with the same patents and Apple subsequently gave the contract for the Mac Pro GPU to AMD as punishment.
1. Re:Interesting article on Semiaccurate about this by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 03:20 · Score: 0
  
  Hah, I don't normally like Apple but that is awesome if true.
So.. by synapse7 · 2014-09-05 00:36 · Score: 1

Is nvidia using patents on commonplace patents to get a piece of the pie they are jealous the don't have. Or are these legitimate patents and said companies are willfully stealing technology?

Keep in mind my next purchases for video cards and cell phones will depend on the answer..
1. Re:So.. by flayzernax · 2014-09-05 00:41 · Score: 0
  
  I'm pretty sure none of this technology is really innovative. Shaders for example have been around since over two decades ago.
2. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:44 · Score: 0
  
  I'm talking out of my ass but I can declare that none of this technology is really innovative. Shaders for example have been around since over two decades ago.
  Fixed that for you.
3. Re:So.. by ArcadeMan · 2014-09-05 00:51 · Score: 1
  
  Still, talking out of your ass is quite impressive. I haven't seen that since 1994.
  
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4. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:01 · Score: 0
  
  You are still wrong...
  I think you must be turned around... What you hear isn't coming out the ass in front of you.
5. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:05 · Score: 0
  
  I'm looking at the patents. Uhm...there's nothing magic in the first one, so far. In fact, a basic simple algorithm similar to the ones you found in the software renderers of yore, expressed as hardware, is all they're talking to in this one. Kind of an inverse of the, if we put it on a computer, it magically becomes patentable. This one's a "if we put it in hardware, it magically becomes patentable"...
  Looks more like an examiner saw some of the $20 words like boustrphedonic (which means, quite simply, rendering the first line from left to right and then flipping it back and forth right to left, left to right per each line following) and then said, "yeah, it's innovative" and rubber stamped this one. After having applied for a patent in the past, wherein I had something novel and they basically rejected it for something along the lines of "you mention brass screws in your design and this patent (utterly unrelated) anticipated yours". Patent examiners these days haven't a friggin' clue what they're examining in much (most?) of the instances of the patents filed and they're winging it almost all the time.
6. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:06 · Score: 0
  
  which is about how long nvidia has been making graphics cards
7. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:08 · Score: 0
  
  The second one's not any better, mind. I don't think these would survive the in re. Bilski tests. NVidia's off wasting it's time facing off against Samsung and Qualcomm (which are actually bigger than they are...) over sour grapes on a chip choice. Looks like NVidia didn't make the cut with Samsung and they're resorting to Litigation instead of Innovation.
8. Re:So.. by aNonnyMouseCowered · 2014-09-05 01:37 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I don't know if the patents legitimate or not. They could be legitimate (ie approved by some patent office and not yet invalidated by a court) and still be bad patents. But a high-profile IT company that starts filing patent law suits can only mean one thing, the company has peaked and is on its way down. So maybe you should start looking for your graphic card and cellphones elsewhere? (AMD suing Intel is a different thing, since it concerns Intel's supposed monopolistic business practices.)
9. Re:So.. by Calibax · 2014-09-05 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  This isn't patent trolling. nVidia literally invented the GPU and much shader technology back in the 1990s. A lot of graphic stuff now considered basic was developed and patented by nVidia.
  These are probably legitimate patents that other companies are using without a license. One of the reasons that Intel graphics technology is still far behind is that they are coming late to the graphics game and have a patent minefield to avoid. It looks like Qualcomm and Samsung decided to ignore the minefield and hope that they didn't step on a patent mine - or at least not step on one that would be noticed by nVidia.
10. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 03:03 · Score: 0
  
  It looks more like nVidia innovated and other companies decided to ignore their patents. After all, nVidia did implement the first shaders. And nobody can say this was obvious stuff (at the time).
  Patents are intended to prevent the little guy being stepped on. Both Samsung and Qualcomm are 10 times the size of nVidia, so they thought they could ignore nVidia's patents.
11. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 03:09 · Score: 0
  
  Did you check those patent dates? Those ideas were new and innovative when nVidia patented them. Without the hardware implementation they would have been too slow to use - who would want something that ran at less than one frame per minute.
12. Re:So.. by Zero__Kelvin · 2014-09-05 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  " But a high-profile IT company that starts filing patent law suits can only mean one thing, the company has peaked and is on its way down. "
  Actually there is another thing it could mean. It could mean somebody is violating their patents. Had that possibility not occured to you?
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
13. Re:So.. by flayzernax · 2014-09-05 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like a bunch of retarded mongoloid nvidia fanbois begrudgingly agree with me as AC's. The idea of a shader model is nothing new boys and girls....... If I stampted it into a peice of metal and used a flywheel with a needle to read the algorithm in. It wouldn't exactly be innovation now would it? Maybe artistic. But hardly innovative.
14. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 04:38 · Score: 0
  
  I have no idea if "the company has peaked and is on its way down" or not, but suing others and being sued is just how business is done in tech. You sue and either get cash, a licensing deal, maybe you have a patent problem yourself and want to beat them to the punch, maybe you just want to slow them down while you catch up.
  You sound like someone on a finance message board who's shorted the stock, or someone from AMD.
15. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 05:17 · Score: 0
  
  Everybody is violating everybody's patents and it's still stupid. It's like claiming "it might mean they both need H2O to live". Patent violiation is an ongoing unavoidable fact of anyone developing any modern technology today. The question is; why did NVIDEA choose today to sue about patents rather than two years ago or five years from now or never. The answer is probably becuase they are going out of business.
16. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 08:09 · Score: 0
  
  Given that IBM has sued companies for patent violations for decades - see the stories from the early days of Sun - and IBM is still around and profitable, I think you may be mistaken.
17. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 09:37 · Score: 0
  
  nVidia literally invented the GPU
  Nvidia coined the term GPU for marketing purposes, which is not the same as inventing the functional part. The company that did invent it was Commodore and they put it in their Amiga computer in 1985. If we are taking about an off the shelf GPU, both S3 (where I worked in 1992) and ATI were making them in the early 1990s, before NVidia even existed. For a pure 3D GPU, Rendition and 3DFx were doing it in the mid-90s.
  
  A lot of graphic stuff now considered basic was developed and patented by nVidia.
  And tens of other companies.
18. Re:So.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 09:52 · Score: 0
  
  This isn't patent trolling. nVidia literally invented the GPU and much shader technology back in the 1990s.
  And what is a GPU? It's a chip that implements the software that was created years before. Rather than a worthless "on the internet" patent, nVidia has a worthless "on a chip" patent that needs to be nullified.
19. Re:So.. by Fjandr · 2014-09-05 15:05 · Score: 1
  
  Much of what they do would never have been possible to implement in software, because it would take a billion years to complete the operations. Therefore, nobody wrote software to do what Nvidia does in hardware.
20. Re:So.. by chowdahhead · 2014-09-06 00:56 · Score: 1
  
  My first 3D accelerator was a Voodoo, and shortly after that a Riva TNT, which wasn't anything special at the time. Back then, I remember there were many more consumer GPU manufacturers, and almost all of them were bringing new features to GPU's. The naming of OGL extensions reflected that. Years before everyone else, 3DFX was doing SLI, ATI had primitive hardware tessellation and the first unified shader arch, and Savage created gpu texture compression. The modern GPU wasn't invented by NVidia, but by contributions by many GPU designs.
Last Gasp of a Dying Man by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:45 · Score: 0

nVidia has been putting nails in its own coffin for years. Their technology is woefully outdated and has become more or less irrelevant in the last few years as they have tried desperately to keep up with AMD's benchmark results, sacrificing R&D spending in favor of "omg more cores! We have to keep up!"
1. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:01 · Score: 0
  
  Then why do they have a solid roadmap of churning out generation after generation of products with fantastic performance and low power consumption?
2. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by ArcadeMan · 2014-09-05 01:01 · Score: 0
  
  Is it really? I see nVidia heading giving better performance per watt for a reasonable cost (Maxwell) while AMD has power-hungry, heat-dissipating GPUs that are only useful for the "uber-gamer" who wants 5% more performance at the cost of three times the power and twice the price.
  
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3. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by Parker+Lewis · 2014-09-05 01:14 · Score: 1
  
  Yeap, you didn't realize this story is related to mobile, not desktop.
4. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:24 · Score: 0
  
  Is it really? I see nVidia heading giving better performance per watt for a reasonable cost (Maxwell) while AMD has power-hungry, heat-dissipating GPUs that are only useful for the "uber-gamer" who wants 5% more performance at the cost of three times the power and twice the price.
  Did you really just say that nvidia sells cheaper than AMD? Wut? I don't even....what?!? O.O
  nah, i get it, you are trolling. Well you caught me! Nice one
5. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by jrumney · 2014-09-05 01:31 · Score: 1
  
  Its their last gasp in the mobile market. Their strategy has been to support their own SoC by not licensing their graphics core to anyone else, so now that they've failed to gain much traction for their ARM SoCs, they're left with nothing. If they'd focused on their core technology, they could have cleaned up by licensing their GPU cores to other manufacturers, so now some pointy haired type has come up with a scheme to make up for lost time by suing everyone who they've been refusing to license their technology to for the last 10 years.
6. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by bytestorm · 2014-09-05 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  Just curious, has anyone done a gpu power/performance comparison of Imagination Technology's powervr and Nvidia's tegra platforms recently? I don't know that they would clean up by licensing their IP out; it seems to me Nvidia stuff has always been more performance focused than power conscious which is something that is extremely hard to sell in the mobile segment.
7. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by ArcadeMan · 2014-09-05 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  Would it be possible to see laptop and desktop class PowerVR GPUs in the future? Would a PowerVR be a better choice for something like the Macbook Air or a Mac nano the size of an Apple TV?
  
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8. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 03:05 · Score: 0
  
  you forgot about ATI's shitty drivers too...
  Radeon FOSS: yeah, wake me up when it gets current standards support.
  My guess is that nVidia wanted to license something and got turned down or they wanted too much money.
9. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by Fjandr · 2014-09-05 15:06 · Score: 1
  
  And in mobile, Nvidia has the fastest graphics operations. Just look at the Shield.
10. Re:Last Gasp of a Dying Man by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-09 11:22 · Score: 0
  
  You mean like PCX1-2 and Kyro1-2 in 1996-2001?
Chart by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 00:49 · Score: 0

Time to update the charts again.
This is not patent trolling. by flowerp · 2014-09-05 01:12 · Score: 2

nVidia holds a lot of patents in the fields of graphics technology - it is a major player in this field and to date has a large market share in the desktop amd mobile GPU market. This is absolutely no patent trolling.
It's just the usual insane patent wars among major players in technology. I highly doubt this will go to court. There will just be a quiet agreement among the parties involved before this escalates too much.

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--- Eat my sig.
1. Re:This is not patent trolling. by jedidiah · 2014-09-05 01:17 · Score: 1
  
  The fact that it isn't a pure Troll doesn't mean it isn't trollling. We can neither accept these at face value nor dismiss them out of hand. It's something that actually requires a little thought and analysis.
  Certainly the "moron on the street" standard should not apply here.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
2. Re:This is not patent trolling. by Zero__Kelvin · 2014-09-05 03:20 · Score: 1
  
  " It's something that actually requires a little thought and analysis."
  No. It doesn't require any thought actually. The problem with your statement stems from your lack of understanding of the term "Patent Troll."
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
One Wonders by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:29 · Score: 0

Nvidia has been awfully quiet the last couple of years during the whole Apple vs Samsung tiff, so I have to wonder if this is actually coming from Nvidia, or Apple. I know that Nvidia's and Apple's relationship has been on a downturn the last year or two but think about it. "Hey Nvidia, get us that Samsung import ban we have been lusting after and we'll renew your contracts for another couple of years..."
1. Re:One Wonders by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:39 · Score: 0
  
  A close reading the article it looks more to me like nVidia is pissed that Samsung is using Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs instead of the nVidia Tregra series. I don't see how they can get any kind of import ban since Samsung is not directly infringing.
2. Re:One Wonders by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 02:27 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, I'm pretty sure what you're insinuating is insanely illegal.
3. Re:One Wonders by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 03:14 · Score: 0
  
  Patent infringement is when you use a patent without a license. If you use a device that infringes, then you have infringed. You don't have to make the device (in this case a chip), using it is sufficient to infringe.
Bad year, swap from tech to economy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 01:30 · Score: 0

All my graphic cards the last 15 years have been nvidia. First was 3d one was AMD rage II, and as a linux user, then they refused to support Linux drivers, I swap 3dfx cards, and then nvidia.
But, most companies that start using their patents are on the way out. Read 3-com, or any other company you remember sued more then they produced.
I just hope this isnt a cry for help...
1. Re:Bad year, swap from tech to economy by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 02:41 · Score: 0
  
  That is my worry as well. Video cards are a market that is cooling off, partially due to the move to consoles for any type of gaming, partially because onboard video on motherboards is good enough for most items [1], and that fewer people are actively buying video cards.
  The drying up of the card market doesn't affect AMD that much because of AMD's larger market segments... but companies like nVidia that make their living on the fact that people will upgrade in order to run the next Crysis are hurting.
  I'm also fearing the death throes... similar to what happened when Kodak started throwing its weight around before they succumbed.
  [1]: Take EQ:Next. SOE designed the game to not be "realistic" as EQ2 was, but to go to a style reminiscent of WoW combined with 1950s Warner Bros. animation styles. Rather than assuming people would buy new cards for a game, PC game companies are writing for a low common denominator.
Trying to get bought out? by Erich · 2014-09-05 02:30 · Score: 1

It's common knowledge that nvidia is having a hard time of things. They cancelled their server chip and their mobile devices are going nowhere. Discrete graphics cards aren't the market they used to be; and certainly not a growth industry. Maybe they're trying to get bought by Qualcomm or Samsung... there aren't many companies that are big enough to be able to absorb them and have it make any kind of sense. I wouldn't be surprised to see them sue Intel also.
Suing the companies that might be able to buy you out is not an uncommon way to start the negotiations.

--
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
1. Re:Trying to get bought out? by Nemyst · 2014-09-05 02:53 · Score: 2
  
  You mean aside from the fact Intel has patent agreements with Nvidia? It's pretty clear to me that Nvidia's trying very hard to increase their share in the mobile market and one way to do it is to get some cash from competitors through licensing agreements. Or maybe they want some of Qualcomm's patents for their own products?
  
  As per usual, /. ignores AnandTech's excellent overview of the situation.
hum, i call bullshit on this by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-05 02:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Henry Gouraud invented computer graphics shading 70's
1. Pixar Renderman 1988 Shading rendering, Programmable Shaders using cpu
2. Unified Shader by ATI :https://www.google.com/patents/US8760454
3. multithreaded parallel processing By INTEL http://www.google.ca/patents/USRE41849
4. Programmable Shaders Nvidia http://www.google.com/patents/US6664963 This one is questionable since it was done in software before gpu's
All these things were conceptualized in the 60's, 70's, 80's.