Patent Infringement: Judge Rejects NVIDIA Claim Against Samsung & Qualcomm

The company had sought an injunction from the United States global 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.

Nvidia will now have to rework its strategy to compete with Samsung, after several unsuccessful attempts to prove that the Korean tech giant used its graphics technology illegally. As such, Judge Pender said in his Friday ruling that Nvidia’s graphics technology-related patents had not been violated by Samsung.

“Today’s initial determination is one more step in the ITC’s legal process”, NVIDIA said in a statement, insisting that despite the setback it remained “confident” in the case it had against the two firms.

The judge rejected two of the patent claims outright and deemed a third patent invalid.

Samsung has declined to comment on the latest ruling, according to a report published by Reuters. But administrative law judge’s decision is an early recommendation, and the ITC still has to make a formal decision.

He said the ruling was only the initial phase in the case and it now goes to the whole commission for review. The amusing part is that Samsung struck back at NVIDIA and filed suit against the American company for falsely advertising its Tegra X1 SoC as being the fastest mobile processor.

A year ago in September, NVIDIA filed a complaint against Samsung and Qualcomm at the ITC who both manufacture the Snapdragon series that get inside the Samsung handsets mentioned above.

Nvidia is a company best known for developing graphics chips for PC. Microsoft also has sued Samsung, saying it didn’t live up to its patent licensing agreement for technology used in Android tablets and smartphones. In fact, it often uses Qualcomm’s processors in a few of its high-end smartphones and tablets.

Nvidia’s lawsuit is just one in an industry that resorts to legal action on a regular basis to protect intellectual property rights. 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.