Nvidia and Samsung have been locked in a bit of a patent war for a while now, with Nvidia filing a class action lawsuit claiming that they effectively invented the modern 3D GPU and that Samsung is using it without their permission. Of course, Samsung wasn’t going to back down from such a fight, as they’ve got a huge business of their own to protect and they filed a counter suit against Nvidia.
Recent developments are certainly looking good for Samsung, as the ITC has declared that Samsung has no infringed upon the Nvidia patents for modern GPUs. Nvidia lost 2 out of 3 patent infringement claims, but to rub salt into the wound, the third claim was thrown out on ground of invalidity, giving Samsung a clean win.
Of course, the battle is far from over and Nvidia won’t be packing up their bags and going home just yet. The case is still under review by the full commission and is subject to revision. The final decision will not arrive until February and an Nvidia spokesperson says that they’re still confident in their case against Samsung.
This is patent trolling on the highest level, and if Nvidia did prove to have created the first modern graphics card, the GeForce 256 (see above) and subsequently hold the patents to them thereafter, it could have huge repercussions on Samsung and also Qualcomm, but again, that remains to be seen.
Thank you WCCF for providing us with this information.
Prove to? Prove to? Have you been living under a rock for the last 20 years? nV did create the first modern GPU. Prior to the GeForce GPU T&L was all done by your CPU on a software level. They were the first to introduce hardware T&L. Patent trolling is when you get a patent for something you never intend to produce and use the vaguest language possible to describe the item or process so you can later go after anyone who manages to approach your description. nV actually uses their IP and therefore has a right to defend it.
Actually 3dfx made the T&L part later bought by nvidia.. Reminds me of apple’s tactics.. no hard feelings just mentioning..
T&l was already implemented in hw before. Just not used for gaming. If that’s your only basis then it is a weak one. It’s like putting a clock and a radio together and registering a patent for it. Nice google though. Modern gpu is a vague term. There athe voodoos the rampage the sis cards. Point is patent system is broken. Maybe the article should include mode details and links about this issue
The Voodoo was a software T&L part. Part of the reason 3DFx went under is the fact they refused to come up with a hardware version and just threw more graphics cores at it.
Hardware T&L did indeed exist prior to the GeForce 256, in the form of add in boards, not on a graphics card. Also worth noting is the fact that ATI came out with their own version of a hardware T&L card without being sued by nV. That nV left them alone and is going after Samsung suggests to me that Samsung might be using something actually covered by the nV patent.
All this patent battle garbage is stifling innovation, the companies that consistently engage in this should be ashamed of their greed. I understand the value of a patent and what it is for, but so many filed in the tech sector are filed purposely vague as to cover a larger area, so that later they can claim ownership of someone else’s ingenuity.