NVIDIA sues Samsung, Qualcomm for patent infringement

Samsung might find itself in court again, but this time not
against Apple and this time not alone. NVIDIA has filed a
lawsuit against both Samsung and Qualcomm, accusing
them of infringing on 7 of its patents related to computer
graphics and is asking the International Trade Commission
and in the U.S. District Court in Delaware to confirm that,
ban devices, and award them damages. No one will perhaps question that NVIDIA owns patents related to
computer graphics technology. No one will also perhaps deny the
contributions the company has made to the field. Perhaps there
are even some actual patent infringement to be found in its
competitors products, too. But there are many parts of this
lawsuit that are just quite difficult to fathom, much less stomach.
For example, NVIDIA's blog post lists seven infringed patents, a
detail that seems to be missing from its official PR statement.
Among those, four are given as follows:
#our foundational invention, the GPU, which puts onto a
single chip all the functions necessary to process
#graphics and light up screens
our invention of programmable shading, which allows
non-experts to program sophisticated graphics
#our invention of unified shaders, which allow every
processing unit in the GPU to be used for different
purposes
#our invention of multithreaded parallel processing in
GPUs, which enables processing to occur concurrently
on separate threads while accessing the same memory
and other resources
Like many software patents these days, those sound very
commonplace and those are the very same foundational
processes or algorithms used in graphics architecture everywhere.
Surely, others in that market, like once bitter rival ATI (now AMD/
ATI) would have a word or two to say about that.
The targets of the lawsuit are equally perplexing. It specifically
names Samsung and Qualcomm as the culprits. But in the same
breadth, it actually mentions a lot more. Qualcomm is being
targeted for its Adreno GPU used in its Snapdragon SoCs. But the
list of Samsung's devices also include those that run on its own
Exynos chips and so ARM's Mali and Imagination Technologies'
PowerVR graphics architectures are also dragged into the lawsuit.
In short, NVIDIA is basically targeting almost every mobile GPU
maker or designer in the market.
Here's the list of Samsung devices that NVIDIA says infringe on
its patents:
Galaxy Note Edge
Galaxy Note 4
Galaxy S5
Galaxy Note 3
Galaxy S4
Galaxy Tab S
Galaxy Note Pro
Galaxy Tab 2
NVIDIA claims that this is the first time ever that they have filed a
patent lawsuit against anyone in its 21 years of existence. It does
make us question why it took them long to target these chips that
have been in the market for so long. It is also strange that it is
going after Samsung alone, considering the Adreno, Mali, and
PowerVR chips have other customers as well. NVIDIA also says
that it has repeatedly approached Samsung for licensing
negotations but has been repeatedly told that it is the problem of
Samsung's suppliers, which might actually be true as well.
Whatever NVIDIA really has in mind when it filed its complaint, it
might turn out to become a PR problem for them. While it doesn't
fit the definition of a patent troll, there will be many who will
question NVIDIA's motives and sanity, not to mention its financial
situation.