Nvidia in court over semiconductor patents
Two subsidiaries of IP licensing company Xperi have sued Nvidia in the US, accusing the technology company of infringing five patents related to semiconductor technology.
Invensas Corporation and Tessera Advanced Technologies filed their suit, which claimed that Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) and system-on-a-chip processors (SoCs) are infringing, at the US District Court on Wednesday, May 8.
Nvidia’s GPUs are incorporated into graphics cards and gaming laptops sold by Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and MSI, along with Nvidia’s own products, according to the claim.
In Xperi’s first quarter results, chief executive Jon Kirchner confirmed the lawsuit.
“We believe that Nvidia is using our patent semiconductor technology in certain of its central processing units and processors and we have been speaking with Nvidia for several years about taking a patent licence,” he said.
Kirchner added that the parties couldn’t come to an agreement.
He concluded: “As always, our preference remains to reach [a] business resolution without litigation. However, litigation remains the tool that is needed from time-to-time to receive fair value for our portfolio.”
This isn’t the first time Nvidia has been embroiled in a legal dispute.
Back in May 2016, Nvidia and Samsung settled a patent infringement dispute, ahead of expected rulings by the US International Trade Commission.
The settlement included the licensing of a “small number of patents by each company to the other”, Nvidia said, but it added that there would be no broad cross-licensing of patents or other compensation.
Aside from litigation, Nvidia is making moves in the life sciences space. Earlier this month, the company announced that it had partnered with university King’s College London to build an artificial intelligence platform.
In the future, the platform will allow specialists in the UK’s National Health Service to train computers to automate the most time-consuming part of radiology interpretation.
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