Notional

Neither did I state so. But we are talking about international companies. They might not break the law in Taiwan or the US with the GPP. But that doesn't mean they aren't breaking the laws in Canada or Japan. So when you make a blanket statement about NVidia not breaking "the law", you're kinda over reaching, don't you think? I can think of Asus with Rog and Strix, but that is about it. It's still their primary of the 2 NVidia wants, which is why Asus only uses ROG for Nvidia now. Asus signed what they were forced to sign. And yes, if they wanted to be competitive and relevant compared to the other vendors, they had no choice. That's how abuse of power (from NVidia's side) works.

Yes, but that morality is subjective on my part as well. No, you don't. You might know some of the law in the US, for instance. That does not necessarily make you qualified on this specific matter, and especially not on the legality of this matter in other countries. Or would you like to tell me about the anticompetitive laws in Denmark and their set precedent in relations to this matter? The US is not the entire world. And how many vendors have more than 1 brand? Gigabyte had to remove all their gaming branding from AMD GPU's. As for Asus, ROG is their gaming brand. Now no longer allowed to be used on AMD GPU's.

NVidia have their own branding. It's called Geforce. I'm sure they can make a contract stating they want their own unique branding as well. What GPP stated, was that the primary brand of the vendor had to be exclusively used by NVidia cards. There's a huge difference between requiring a new brand deal to go along with these chips, and then outright usurpring existing branding worth billions from the third party vendor.

Morality is 100% subjective, although it can have a majority consensus in a society. You don't know the law, so you have no legitimacy to claim what you claimed.

Well, since you made the original claim that NVidia has full rights to ROG and other Asus branding, please provide the sources to prove that statement. Now, since you can't, no company ever would sign away their IP/branding away to a third party company to use their stuff like that. You misunderstand what GPP is, demands from NVidia's side and what the vendors actually have to do.

I don't know the specifics of GPU PCB IP and licensing agreements. But you are still missing the point. It's Asus' end product, and even if NVidia owen 100% of the hardware in the box, it still wouldn't make NVidia the owner of Asus' IP or branding. .. is what your subjective opinion is.

Only if it was the reference design. Still doesn't make ROG, NVidia's IP. It did state exclusive usage of their primary gaming branding. And anyone not participating would be prioritized a lot less and have no access to a bunch of necessary things. So not technically locked out, but close enough.

It's not an NVidia product. It's an Asus product with an NVidia chip on it. And Micron GDDR5 memory on it, and a VESA DisplayPort on it, and so on. NVidia has the rights to GeForce and the numbering/Titan/Ti. They have zero rights over a third party's branding, like ROG or Strix. The second part of your sentence doesn't make sense.

In the Microsoft case, no. But I've yet to see the US vs. Google on the store thing. But several huge markets putting international companies in their place, is a good thing. For both FTC and EU to come to the same conclusion on something is great. Your initial statement has been debunked though. It's NOT Nvidia's branding, no matter how many times you state that nonsense. ROG is Asus' branding, and is owned exclusively by Asus, NOT NVidia. Your statement is incorrect and senseless.

Dude, this isn't a legally binding court case, it's a tech forum. I'm not obliged to do anything. Everything I say here is my personal opinion, unless stated as factual with sources. You're being pedantic now. Well, the point is, you don't know that. Any laws? So you know all laws? In all countries? On the entire earth?

Now you're just making up things. EU's fight against Microsoft's Explorer was unique. As was EU's "adjustment slap" in Google's face, when google prioritized their own store links on their own search engine. I have not seen FTC doing anything in that regard. Not stopping, but severely hindering. Marketing matters. So when NVidia dictates that vendors have to invent new branding and create mindshare of that branding, just for AMD, it would cost the vendors a lot of money. It would also usurp the mindshare already created in the existing branding, exclusively for NVidia's benefit (ROG for instance). This would/will have an influence on sales on GPU's with AMD chips on them. That is abuse of market position and creates an unfair market advantage. Companies have been convicted for a lot less than that in the EU. Yup, I don't like that. But there still is a big difference, in the descrete GPU market is a duopoly, where GPU vendors are closer to perfect competition. I still think it's somwehat anticompetitive between the vendors, but has little influence on the NVidia/AMD marketshare.

Well if AMD gave certain GPU vendors extra privileges, then yeah, it coud be considered anti competitive towards the other GPU vendors. That, of course, is unacceptable. Do you know what vendors were allowed to use GDDR5? But none of that had any influence on NVidia as such.

How is AMD stopping Gainward/Palit from making NVidia cards or branding them? Did you even read your own sources? You're trying too hard, but just failing too hard. Actually, AMD doesn't have to do anything. EU can and will on their own behalf start these court cases. Sure, it helps if a company accused said company, but it's not necessary. But yeah, Nvidia might have broken 20 different laws in the EU. They might have broken 0 (that can be proved). We will only know if EU takes action.

Those cases are not comparable. What NVidia was doing, was forcing third party vendors to put AMD in a worse position. The case you are linking, has nothing to do with NVidia at all. It has to do with Gainward going out of spec with the 4850 chip, which was supposed to come with GDDR3 memory, instead of the much faster GDDR5 Gainward put on their cards, thus propelling them into a higher tier of cards than they should. This was certainly against the contracts between ATI/AMD and Gainward back then. No one's allowed to do custom stuff to NVidia's Titan cards either. That has nothing to do with AMD, and isn't anti competitive, at least in that regard.

Oh, but I do believe it's anticompetitive. But requiring me to prove it, when I'm not a lawyer, don't know what country of law we are speaking, have no access to the actual legal documents, and I'm not a judge, is simply not very serious. Intel's Dell deal was anitcompetitive in praxis, even if Intel would never be convicted of anticompetitive measures. I'm expressing myself on behalf of reality, not on behalf of de jure. Hmm Anyways, yeah, scummy is a very useful term when it comes to GPP.

There's a big difference between actuality/praxis and the actual law. Stating that something is anticompetitive in praxis, doesn't mean it's necessarily against the law. I don't speak as a lawyer (again, we are talking internationally, so that's practically impossible due to different national and supernational legislation). No, I speak as a layman in law, but educated in business. In praxis the GPP skews competition just as much as Intel's bribes on Dell back in the days. The way NVidia did it is different, to the point where it might be legal. We won't know until (if) a court has ruled for or against. Your definition/understanding of precedent is still incorrect. Precedents does not make law. It defines how a law is used in praxis. That can be used as a basis to make additional law, sure. But precedent does not make or create law in and of itself. You are mistaken.

Asked and answered already:

It's only illegal if you get convicted in the eyes of the law, right?

Nah, we know NVidia coopted the primary gaming brand for exclusive use at third party vendors. It wouldn't surprise me if that cooption demand is illegal in and of itself (remember the vendor would be heavily disadvantaged, if they refused). Coopting marketing would disadvantage AMD heavily. Such a thing is just what EU generally beat the crap out of the tech companies for. Well, that is your subjective opinion. It is not based on fact, nor law.

Read my post again please. If you still think that I know the entire EU legal system, plus is a qualified prosecutor AND have the combined knowledge of the EU judges to singlehandedly convict NVidia by myself. Well, then you have a very high opinion of me; thanks But generally the GPP forces third party companies to adopt NVidia's contracts, at the cost of AMD's market share, due to less marketing exposure. Marketing is worth more than the product itself. Otherwise companies wouldn't invest billions on it.

We do, but your terminology and retorik is simply not correct. A law is the law and stands, whether it's been effectuated through a court case, or not. How it's being effectuated in praxis in the court, that subsequent result is what a precedence is. And that precedence can change every single time the law is being used in the court. In context to this case, we don't know if, for instance, the EU courts have convicted any companies of similar things, or if they would with the current laws. So everyone in here are only speculating on the outcome of such a law. As a layman, when I'm saying it's anticompetitve, I'm talking from a practical point of view, not necessarily from a legal point of view.

No, the government/parlament creates the law. Precedent just means the outcome of the law in praxis, has become a standard other court cases can point to. This way, they don't have to prove the legitimacy of the law every time. You're confusing things here.

Nonsense. Precedent is set as a result of the outcome of a court case. It is not a prerequisite for a court case to be startet. It is up to the prosecutor, whether to accuse or not.

because your feelings feel like they broke anti competitive doesnt mean they did fyi how has nvidia's legal team been on lawsuits? is their record is amazing lol Because the lawyers said it wasn't illegal, doesn't mean it's not. It's up to a court to come to that conclusion. Neither the lawyers nor you can conclude otherwise. How they are doing? Well, they got their asses handed to them in their pathetic Kepler licencing scheme, where they lost every single court case in the end.

Everything companies do, have the go ahead of the legal departments. Doesn't mean they didn't break the law, nor that they won't get convicted in a case of law. After all, what is legally allowed in Asia or the US, might not be in the EU or Australia.