Samsung, Qualcomm didn’t infringe on NVIDIA patents – ITC

“We remain confident in our case”. A judge for the U.S. worldwide Trade Commission ruled Friday that Samsung had not infringed upon two of Nvidia’s patents but that it had infringed upon a third, invalid patent in an escalating battle over intellectual property rights between the tech companies. We now intend to ask the full commission (which is made up of six commissioners) to review this initial determination and to confirm the previous judgment of the U.S. Patent Office – that the third patent is valid. If it agrees with Nvidia, it could issue an order to ban Samsung from importing into the USA such products as Galaxy smartphones and tablets, which Nvidia has alleged violates its patents, Reuters reported. NVIDIA claims that certain mobile processors built by Qualcomm and incorporated into several of Samsung’s handsets infringed on technologies that cover things like programmable shading, unified shaders, and multithreaded parallel processing.

Nvidia, which is best known for making graphics chips for PCs, in September 2014 filed lawsuits involving seven of its patents with the ITC and US District Court in Delaware. It is worth noting that the ruling in question is under review by the full commission and subject to revision – with the final decision on the dispute arriving in February. Samsung naturally responded by filling a counter suit against Nvidia and in no time, it had turned into a (not so) good natured patent brawl.In a landmark moment, it would appear that Samsung has gained a win over Nvidia because the ITC has declared that Samsung has not infringed upon Nvidia’s patents for inventing the modern GPU.

A spokeswoman for Samsung declined to comment. The company had sought an injunction from the United States worldwide Trade Commission, alleging that rival chipmakers were infringing on its graphics patents with silicon found inside – among others – the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S5. Samsung counterattacked Nvidia, asking the ITC the same with Nvidia’s chips and mobile processors.

The decision deals a blow to Nvidia’s efforts to prove that Samsung illegally used its technology. The first lawsuit was meant to stop the import of Samsung products while as the second suit was meant for damages. The ITC has the power to place sales bans on companies it finds guilty of wrongdoing, and has been used as an agent of competition.