NVIDIA Files Patent Infringement Complaints Against Qualcomm & Samsung


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In a surprising move this afternoon, NVIDIA has announced that they will be filing patent infringement complaints against both Qualcomm and Samsung. This complaint is centered around the alleged use of NVIDIA patented GPU technologies in both Qualcomm and Samsung?s SoC?s and the unwillingness of the respective companies to enter in to a licensing agreement. NVIDIA has filed complaints with both the US Federal Court and the International Trade Commission, and in the case of the latter is seeking an injunction against Samsung to prevent them from shipping several recent products, including the Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 4, and Galaxy Edge.

 

 

This suit is not limited to just Qualcomm?s Adreno GPUs however, and also extends to ARM Mali and Imagination PowerVR GPUs as well, as Samsung has used both of those GPU families in their various Exynos designs. Overall NVIDIA believes that the Adreno 200, Adreno 300, and Adreno 400 families all violate NVIDIA?s patents, while the Mali-T628 and the PowerVR SGX (Series 5) are also explicitly named in claims.

 

 

As a result virtually all of Samsung?s modern products are affected by this suit. As part of their request for relief, NVIDIA is asking that the ITC prevent Samsung from importing products using the infringing SoCs, which would include all of Samsung?s latest products including the Note 4 and its Edge variant, the Galaxy S4 and S5, and the latest Tab tablets. As Qualcomm?s SoCs are among the accused products, this injunction would presumably extend to Snapdragon imports as well, which given Qualcomm?s heavy presence in high-end phones and tablets in the United States would make the final list of affected products far larger. However it should be noted that immediate injunctions are very rare, so it?s unlikely that an import ban would go into effect before the conclusion of the trial (if it even makes it that far).

 

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8492/nvidia-files-patent-infringement-complaints-against-qualcomm-samsung

 

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