Razor01

Its legal lol, its an agreement between the two parties. If that agreement brakes laws then there is a problem, otherwise no problems at all.

I don't know how its there in is AUS, but if we buy property here, its ours to do with as we wish and its passed along to family even if there is no will, but there can be stipulations on that too, based on the seller, neighborhood (usually for exclusive residencies). Now if there is property tax in the state that you buy property here, you must pay that or their can be a lean put on you. Not just support, even selling of their a board that is based on nV's IP that they paid for to make. Ah no if MB had an IP agreement with Lambo and Lambo didn't fulfill that agreement, Lambo, can not sell their car, they might need to give the engine back in original form that it was given to them. Again we are talking about IP vs outright ownership. IP has certain rights. Want me to give you an example of IP of MB engines. Look at new Aston Martin DB I think, that uses an MB engine, one of the stipulation's put on them is they can't compete in the same market at MB doesn't, and the Aston Martin DB with that MB engine doesn't compete in the market that MB cars with that engine are in. If Aston Martin breaks that by lower prices of their DB to where MB cars are at, then they have problems.

Its not vague the reason why you are saying that is because patents are a function of multiple parts to create a patent, so its not easily definable, since there needs to be a thought process and logic involved, copyrights and trademarks are easily definable. If own ones IP rights,patents, copyrights and trademarks for a certain product, that they license to a 3rd party. The owner of that product is not the 3rd party, they can't do as they wish, they have the right to do certain things based on what is agreed upon, but ownership is never given, if ownership was given, then they can do what ever they want with those copyrights, trademarks, and IP. That is the definition and purpose of an IP license.

Its not vague, its part of intellectual property. https://www.cpsslaw.com/blog/2016/03/the-three-main-components-of-intellectual-property.shtml You think law firms like this one think its vague? Apparently the US state department is also vague about these things?

That is true. And so do AIB's own their own product then? You are saying the board IP is owned by nV, the GPU is owned by nV, the IP of HDMI is owned by HDMI, what does Asus really own? ROG brand and its cooler, is that it? Does that ROG brand and cooler constitute as ownership of the product?

Branding IS IP, please look that up if you can't understand it! IP has three different parts to it, one of it is branding, logo, and what not, those are copyrights. Does ASUS own its IP for the ROG brand, yes, but it has not weight in the current market. Because its co brand Geforce has all the weight and that is owned by nV.

That is exactly what you are saying, I am saying the opposite of that. AIB's don't have ownership of what they make, nor does nV, if they don't follow what is outlined in their license agreements of what constitutes making of those products. Doesn't matter if a company put up money to make the products, the ownership of the respective IP BELONGS to the creator of that IP.

If nV breaks the IP of TSMC, yes TSMC has full control on letting nV sell those GPU's or not lol IP license, is not the same as owner ship rights guys. So by no means is ownership ever transferred, that is why they are there. That is why I gave the example of software EULA, if we don't adhere to what is in a EULA and someone finds out, you can be banned form not using something you paid for. That isn't ownership, that is renting or something less than renting.

That is a problem, AIB's licensed nV IP to create board and sell GPU right? nV licensed HDMI for their board IP. You are saying AIB's own their nV cards because they made it If so nV made the HDMI parts (or bought them) and integrated them into their cards based on HDMI IP. That means nV owns HDMI too by your logic. What I'm saying is AIB's don't own their products outright, because they must do things based on what ever agreement they have with nV and their license to meet the obligation of selling the product.

yeah they own the cooler lol mentioned that quite a few times, that is about the only thing they own. They can sell that separately if they wish. And it doesn't count, because I can put a cpu cooler on an ASUS card and it will run, GN's has a nice video on that.

they have the license that gives them to right to put HDMI on their card, that license doesn't stop them from creating what ever they want though. They can sell the product as they wish, nV's license, and AMD's have other stipulations when they are reselling their products. That doesn't MEAN nV OWNS HDMI though, even though they paid for the use of it in a product! That is BS, nV doesn't own it, so part of their product is owned by someone else, if HDMI turns around and cancels its license to nV because nV did something that breaks the contract, nV can't sell its product with HDMI in them, so who owns nV's products now! Well nV doesn't have full ownership of its products at that point because they lost that ability. Just like Intel vs nV, nV was making Intel chipsets, Intel pulled the plug on nV's license, nV could not sell their chipsets/motherboards anymore. Because Intel OWNS the chipset, nV doesn't own their own product at this point.

Exactly, come on, nV's licence gives the right to even create the AIB BOARDS! They can't even create the boards if they don't have that license! But that license doesn't give them the right to sell those boards without the GPU's! In the past nV and AMD used to package the ram WITH the GPU, they bought the vram and sold it AIB partners! How quick are we to foget about all the way these AIB's make money. You don't get it @leadeater , if AIB's own a product as you say, like you are I, they can do WTF they want with, they can't, they are not allowed to sell in certain regions, they aren't allows to do what ever they want with their boards, they aren't allowed to do what ever they want with the GPU's, they aren't allowed to market in certain ways, YES that is also stipulated in current contracts, remember when nV put a minimum price of adverting for AIB cards? It was oh a 8 years ago?

And you are calling it illegal, because of its exclusive branding, is BS, we see this all the time in every industry, its not illegal. Does nV have more muscle yes, is it leveraging it yes. Does it hurt us as consumers by A) removing directly competing products in the market place B) price manipulation either up or down (below cost) Answer A) No AMD is just fine, AIB's can buy their cards as they wish, Even with the GPP, just brand them differently B) Nope happening The other parts of anti trust like tying, and all that good stuff, just don't even fit the bill. Anti trust laws that make manipulation of marketplace by over all influence of the market, MUST HURT the consumer's ability to buy a directly competing product, an AMD product, not another nV product, they are looked at as the same product just another brand. Or by a direct price manipulation that forces competitors to loose market share since they can't compete on lower prices or high prices which is forcing consumers to empty their pockets. Key words directly hurting the consumer either by price or by competitor choices. Neither of those are happening. So it doesn't equate to anything anti trust.

Its not illegal, its a contract between nV and its AIB partners, if they agree to it, its up to them lol. And its NOT THEIR PRODUCT if they want to resell it lol, because they don't have the right of ownership at that point! They have ownership of the license at that point, if they want to behave like an end user, yeah then they own the product, then they can't sell the card though. As a reseller they must abide by what their contract and license with nV is, if they have MDF, if they have early access, if they are able to overclock, what kind of branding is required, etc.

Any component so if its a fault of the GPU is it ASUS's responsibility to spend the money to get another GPU, or is it nV's? This is why the license also stipulates warranty amounts too. Why do you think EVGA dropped their life time warranties? They didn't want to drop it, it was because nV didn't want to uphold that anymore. It was costing nV too much with Fermi. Fermi had a higher GPU failure rate that previous cards.

Asus doesn't own what they sell, they can't sell it as they wish, they are licensed to sell a product. They have the right to sell, not the ownership of the product. Its just like a software vendor, they have the license to sell that license, they don't own the product. That license grants them certain things, and certain obligations must also be met. What ever they are. They don't own it as you and I own as an end user. There was a thread on a guy who bought 50k copies of Windows 10 from China. he is the owner of those products, but he can't sell those products even at no market up. Because he is not granted that authority to sell. If Asus doesn't not want to sell they can use the cards they make as they wish lol.

You can't get an AMD ROG branded or nV ROG branded card that is equivalent to the ROG branded card you have right now? Is that what you are saying. What I'm getting at, is you have either and nV or AMD card that is rog branded right? If ASUS ROG did not have that GPU manufacturer as an option in their ROG brand but they had the opposing manufacturer's card that isn't remotely equivalent in all metrics, would you get that card instead? I wouldn't, I would spend my money for the best product I can get for it, and if it comes from MSI, Zotac, EVGA, Sapphire, or others, doesn't matter. AIB doesn't matter to me at all, because what matters to me is what the card can do, and how much it costs, and its warranty time. I could care less if its called Shit Brand lol, as long as it works and has good components and warranty and service is good, I don't care. I have 453 cards plus my gaming and dev card, all of them come from different AIB's, some from EVGA, some from PNY, some from Zotac. some from Gigabyte, my gaming system from Asus, its an FE, my dev system, is nV Titan. I don't see any differences between them outside of audible differences and that isn't much at the end. out all of these cards I only had one issue with a PNY 1070, which they replaced with a 1070ti lol. I rarely even look at premium cards any more, since Maxwell, because the stock stuff overclock and undervolts just as well, the only reason would be noise for me to look at those AIB cards lol. Personally I don't think the AIB's brands mean anything in the graphics market anymore. They don't give anything extra for the money you put down on them. EVGA cards I have are more expensive than the other cards but their memory they use overclock the least out of all of them, Gigabyte and PNY overclock the best they were the cheapest. The GPU overclocks I got the best out of Zotac, which were cheaper than the EVGA's too! But I'm tuning these cards to make money right? Now if I was gaming, like my 1080ti, I'm happy with what ever extra performance I get from my overclocks for the money I spent, its just extra. But having experienced what it was with the 1070's, and 1080's, I knew it didn't matter for me to get a specific AIB 1080ti, because what ever I got it was going to end up with 2000mhz core clock with undervolting. And that is exactly what I got. I ended up getting it from ASUS, and FE because it was cheaper by 50 bucks and came with Destiny 2, effectively 100 bucks less for me than the other brands. If EVGA or MSI had the same type of discounts I would have gotten one of those, preferably EVGA because I have had better experience with their RMA process. But end of the day, I knew it really didn't matter 100 bucks. Lets leave the other things out of it ok.

Seriously they made that product for their GPU's, they didn't make it so everyone can use it on their own GPU's, AMD/ATi went to other physics simulation software like Bullet and Intel had Havok prior to MS buying that out.

Ah why were the AIB's pissed off with nV doing FE boards then? You do realize they were worried about nV going into retail for themselves. ROG's first product was an SLI nforce motherboard. Now what graphics card do you have right now, and if you could only get the other IHV's (which is NOT equivalent in all metrics) card in the ROG brand would you buy that ROG card? Right you are not interested, you don't care because its not your product that you are licensing to another company to sell lol, nV does or did care because it was there product that was being licensed and sold that these partners are making money on.

That is the problem its co branding, so who has the right to say what? This was what I stated in one of my first posts about the GPP, Geforce has too much weight right now and the AIB's must follow suit if nV wishes they want to do something about their brand. Any marketer, or advertiser will tell you that is a danger of co branding. There is nothing illegal, unethical, non business point of view for this. This is business and in business brands have a certain stigma and value, and when co brands are not equal in merit the owner of the stronger brand has more leverage. Any business dealing is based on what the parties bring to the table. Asus's ROG brand or MSI's Gamer X brand doesn't bring anything to the table when Geforce is why people are buying these cards. If Asus tomorrow drops all Geforce cards from their products WILL THEY MAINTAIN the same graphics card % in the marketshare? No they won't they will not be able to supplant nV graphics cards with AMD graphics cards and maintain their share. Their ROG brand means nothing in this context.

You are an end user, you own that product, because its not a license, I don't remember end users even licensing hardware for reselling, did you do that with your system? You made your computer, you bought your OS right? If you used that OS in a way that EULA say's you shouldn't, like putting it on two systems and you get caught and the serial gets burned. You don't own your software lol. You broke that license and you lost your rights to use the software.

See You guys don't seem to understand, AIB's have a license to resell these products, with certain customization, that license gives them the right to do certain things for reselling. They can own the product directly if they don't want to resell the product, sure because then they will be an end user. But if they want to be a seller of those products then they don't have the right of ownership of the product. That is the whole reason for an IP license to grant certain rights to do certain things. If lets say Qualcomm gets the x86 license from Intel, to do work on a specific product, the license is given to them for a specific product, something that doesn't have anything to do with Intel's markets, Qualcomm makes the product and then directly goes and sells the products in the server market. That is not possible, because Intel owns the product and they gave certain rights to Qualcomm, and one of the stipulations was they can't directly compete in current Intel markets. Does Qualcomm really own the product at this point? Intel is telling them what they can and can not do with Qualcomm's product even though Qualcomm PAID for the license, PAID for designing the chip, PAID for manufacturing of the chip, PAID for marketing the chip. They PAID for a lot of things, but they didn't PAY for ownership rights. They can't do what they feel like doing, any which way they want to. This is the same with AIB's, they don't own the product as a whole if they want to be a reseller of the product, even if they PAID for making the custom board or PAID for the RAM.

EVGA will take care of that, but was due to a faulty cooler design. That is EVGA's problem.

Simple when we buy software, do we buy the software? No we buy the licensee for that software, to use it in a manner that is specified by the license. Same thing here, do the AIB's buy the product? No, they buy the license to the product to do as they they are deemed to by nV to create the product in full and sell to the market. The product is owned by nV, and is licensed to the AIB's which they can customize based on that license agreement.

Can't have it both ways, the GPU and Board IP is nV's, its their product that makes the AIB's work even remotely marketable. So at the end of the day, its the AIB's responsibility to get the product to the market, but the product , its IP solely "belongs" to the nV. Take out ownership by money here, Pas008 and I are talking about who really owns the product from an IP point of view, that is why nV will always be targeted before the AIB's. nV tell's it AIB's what they want for their products. Just as AMD does for theirs.