AMD Says LG and Vizio Are in Violation of Its Graphics Patents

We told you about a month ago that AMD filed a patent complaint regarding graphics IP infringement against companies LG, Vizio and MediaTek, and it looks like the US International Trade Commission has eventually decided to investigate the matter. According to AMD, devices manufactured by these companies, including TVs, smartphones, and mobile CPUs are leveraging its own concepts of unified graphics shaders and parallel graphics pipelines, and the goal here is to obtain a sales ban on any of these products. However, sources indicate that AMD is actually using the complaint as a weapon in a proxy war against companies such as Imagination Technologies and ARM, which design graphics cores without actually manufacturing them.

By targeting hardware companies that manufacture and sell actual products, AMD could stand to profit from its patent collection campaign, which was already in the works back in 2014. Furthermore, Samsung and GlobalFoundries are already hard at work licensing the patents, which could give AMD a clear advantage in the impending legal battle. In the long run, LG and Vizio could suffer a serious setback as a result of this ITC campaign, but since these cases can take up to 15 months to resolve, they still have time to prepare a proper defense, and maybe even take some of the products in question off the shelves.