Nvidia engages in combat with Samsung: Which will win, the Titan or the Dragon

[mvitkun]

Im not even sure if they WERE guilty that it would be a good thing for the public, even if legally it was the right choice.

 

Its gotten to the point where i am convinced that nothing productive can come out of patient lawsuits. Blocking and disrupting sales, forcing companies to take on extra fees on items that they are already making very minor margins on....

 

And this kinda feels like nVidia is a bit butthurt that their k1 chip and the rest of their graphics cores are being tossed to the side because they just dont stand up. Now they are using the legal system to cry foul and force companies to acknowledge their chips again. (But this is bias talking, ill wait until i see legal briefs before i speak more on that)

You mean these?

http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/imagelibrary/downloadmedia.ashx?MediaDetailsID=2996&SizeId=-1&SizeID=-1

http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/imagelibrary/downloadmedia.ashx?MediaDetailsID=2993&SizeId=-1&SizeID=-1

[silberdrachi]

You mean these?

http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/imagelibrary/downloadmedia.ashx?MediaDetailsID=2996&SizeId=-1&SizeID=-1

http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/imagelibrary/downloadmedia.ashx?MediaDetailsID=2993&SizeId=-1&SizeID=-1

 

Yes, but those are only plaintiff briefs, i would like to reserve judgement until both sides have spoken on the topic. Especially with how many companies are named in the suits.

[bogus]

I wonder how Intel and AMD are reacting to this. It's not clear if NVIDIA is stopping the lawsuits in the smartphone market.

I guess this will either be the rize of NVIDIA to another level, or they might get this blow up in their faces and crash down.

[ionbasa]

This is hilarious, you can read Nvidia's formal complaint to the US ITC here: http://nvidianews.nv...Id=-1&SizeID=-1
Numbered page 1 (PDF page 9) has a hilarious excerpt:
 

This is a case to remedy the unlawful importation of certain consumer electronics and display devices with graphics processing and graphics processing units (GPUs) that infringe United States patents owned by Complainant NVIDIA Corporation (“NVIDIA”). NVIDIA, the inventor of the graphics processing unit (“GPU”), is a pioneer in, and the largest company in the world dedicated to, visual computing.

So Nvidia invented the "GPU". They didn't even exist as a company pre 1993, and there were GPUs previously developed by other companies such as Intel, TI, S3 graphics, and IBM.

Furthermore, if you read through the complaint Nvidia bought Samsung smartphones via a Best Buy and essentially reversed engineered the Exynos chips to prove that the graphics subsystem is using PowerVR technology.

I'm going to sit back and watch this pan out, some parts of the official complaint are hilariously bad, while other parts have you on the edge of your seat screaming at why Samsung and Qualcomm would (allegedly) steal PowerVR.

[Nomelas]

This is hilarious, you can read Nvidia's formal complaint to the US ITC here: http://nvidianews.nv...Id=-1&SizeID=-1

Numbered page 1 (PDF page 9) has a hilarious excerpt:

 

So Nvidia invented the "GPU". They didn't even exist as a company pre 1993, and there were GPUs previously developed by other companies such as Intel, TI, S3 graphics, and IBM.

Furthermore, if you read through the complaint Nvidia bought Samsung smartphones via a Best Buy and essentially reversed engineered the Exynos chips to prove that the graphics subsystem is using PowerVR technology.

I'm going to sit back and watch this pan out, some parts of the official complaint are hilariously bad, while other parts have you on the edge of your seat screaming at why Samsung and Qualcomm would (allegedly) steal PowerVR.

nVidia invented the GPU as much as AMD invented the APU

[dalekphalm]

nVidia invented the GPU as much as AMD invented the APU

True, APU's have actually existed for some time. Has AMD ever claimed it invented APU's though?

 

In any case, I don't like the sound of this court case. People are jumping on the Samsung hate wagon for seemingly no reason, just assuming that they are guilty when we really have no idea.

[mr moose]

This is hilarious, you can read Nvidia's formal complaint to the US ITC here: http://nvidianews.nv...Id=-1&SizeID=-1

Numbered page 1 (PDF page 9) has a hilarious excerpt:

 

So Nvidia invented the "GPU". They didn't even exist as a company pre 1993, and there were GPUs previously developed by other companies such as Intel, TI, S3 graphics, and IBM.

Furthermore, if you read through the complaint Nvidia bought Samsung smartphones via a Best Buy and essentially reversed engineered the Exynos chips to prove that the graphics subsystem is using PowerVR technology.

I'm going to sit back and watch this pan out, some parts of the official complaint are hilariously bad, while other parts have you on the edge of your seat screaming at why Samsung and Qualcomm would (allegedly) steal PowerVR.

 

technically they did, before nvidia produced and started calling them graphics processing units they were called a video controller module,  where the GPU is actually a single chip processor:

 

 

The term GPU was popularized by Nvidia in 1999, who marketed the GeForce 256 as "the world's first 'GPU', or Graphics Processing Unit, a single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping, and rendering engines that are capable of processing a minimum of 10 million polygons per second". Rival ATI Technologies coined the term visual processing unit or VPU with the release of the Radeon 9700 in 2002.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

[dalekphalm]

technically they did, before nvidia produced and started calling them graphics processing units they were called a video controller module,  where the GPU is actually a single chip processor:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

It says they were the ones who popularized the term, but did they explicitly build the first single chip graphics processor?

[mr moose]

It says they were the ones who popularized the term, but did they explicitly build the first single chip graphics processor?

yeah true,  The article also say the commodore was the first pc to come with a GPU as standard.  I should have know that seeing as the commodore was the first PC I ever owned.  Any how serves me right for just reading the first paragraph of an article.

 

EDIT: I guess it depends how you define GPU though, If Nvidia's definitions is right about the single chip thing with integrated rendering engines etc, then they were, otherwise every computer since the first one has had some form of visual output and thus could be argued to have a GPU.

[ionbasa]

nVidia invented the GPU as much as AMD invented the APU

No, invidia did not invent the GPU.

 

The first consumer computer to feature an actual (non-crappy) GPU was the Commodore Amiga, that GPU use in the Amiga was a custom in house design chip that was soldered on the motherboard PCB. Now if you want to argue that a consumer GPU has to feature an interconnect such as PCI, then this wont qualify but two other cards will. 

 

The IBM 8514/A meant for IBM compatible PS/2 computers was released in 1987 (before Nvidia even existed) and use the MCA interconnect:

Now, I don't believe that that was the 'first' single chip GPU as I believe the card had a coprocessor which split separate functions across two different chips. 

 

So, that leaves us with ATI. ATI made the Mach 8 GPU which had a ISA bus and was truly a single chip function card. There was also the Mach 32 which was also released before Nvidia even existed as a company.

[LAwLz]

This is hilarious, you can read Nvidia's formal complaint to the US ITC here: http://nvidianews.nv...Id=-1&SizeID=-1

Numbered page 1 (PDF page 9) has a hilarious excerpt:

 

So Nvidia invented the "GPU". They didn't even exist as a company pre 1993, and there were GPUs previously developed by other companies such as Intel, TI, S3 graphics, and IBM.

Furthermore, if you read through the complaint Nvidia bought Samsung smartphones via a Best Buy and essentially reversed engineered the Exynos chips to prove that the graphics subsystem is using PowerVR technology.

I'm going to sit back and watch this pan out, some parts of the official complaint are hilariously bad, while other parts have you on the edge of your seat screaming at why Samsung and Qualcomm would (allegedly) steal PowerVR.

Well if they bought a Samsung smartphone at best buy with an Exynos chip then chances are it actually uses a PowerVR chip.

The Exynos Octa 5410 which is in the Exynos model of the Galaxy S 4 has a PowerVR chip in it (and later Exynos chips uses Mali chips exclusively).

 

If they are basing their lawsuit on an Exynos chip then I have no idea why they are bringing up Qualcomm.

[Briggsy]

In the case of AMD vs Nvidia or AMD vs Intel, software/hardware engineers bounce back and forth enough between the three companies that its a copyright stalemate, and no action is ever taken. Samsung on the other hand might have fun dodging bullets here.

[Nomelas]

True, APU's have actually existed for some time. Has AMD ever claimed it invented APU's though?

 

In any case, I don't like the sound of this court case. People are jumping on the Samsung hate wagon for seemingly no reason, just assuming that they are guilty when we really have no idea.

Nope, I don't believe AMD claimed to have invented the APU, but the point stands that that AMD just coined the term APU as nVidia only coined the term GPU.

[Nomelas]

No, invidia did not invent the GPU.

that's exactly my point.

[Vassili62]

If anything I think nothing good will happening out of this for any of the companies involved. Lawsuits are very costly and if there is anyone who has more to lose here it is Nvidia. I hate to see Nvidia do this, but it sadly does not surprise me too much these days.

[Briggsy]

If anything I think nothing good will happening out of this for any of the companies involved. Lawsuits are very costly and if there is anyone who has more to lose here it is Nvidia. I hate to see Nvidia do this, but it sadly does not surprise me too much these days.

 

I actually Agree, this hurts Nvidia no matter how it plays out. Consumers pay a premium for Nvidia products, and that profit can be put back into R&D. Nvidia's aggressive move into the mobile sector with Tegra is like a rock being thrown at a bees nest. People who pay thousands for a Titan Z or Quadro are probably not too happy that Nvidia are using profit from such a large mark-up to move into a saturated mobile sector, or to sue Samsung/Qualcomm for mobile crap. If it turns out that Samsung's/Qualcomm's software/hardware pre-date what Nvidia is doing or are not infringing patents, Samsung can and likely would counter-sue even harder.

 

I guess the other way of looking at it, is that Nvidia probably had to jump through hoops just to release a mobile tablet, and pay through the nose for all the patents that exist in the mobile world. Seems like Nvidia are getting into the patent enforcement game because they want others to pay like they have to, which will cost them in the long run.

[Dr.DoomCup]

Samsung is going to get:

☐ Not REKT

☑ REKT

☑ REKTangle

☑ SHREKT

☑ REKT-it Ralph

☑ Total REKTall

☑ The Lord of the REKT

☑ The Usual SusREKTs

☑ North by NorthREKT

☑ REKT to the Future

☑ Once Upon a Time in the REKT

☑ The Good, the Bad, and the REKT

☑ LawREKT of Arabia

☑ Tyrannosaurus REKT

☑ eREKTile dysfunction

Wrecked*

[totjup5]

Good, the more money nvidia has to work with the better.