Samsung Countersues NVIDIA and NVIDIA Responds

[dgstorm]

Even though the patent wars have mostly died down over the past couple of years, that doesn't mean they will ever abate completely. The most recent high profile case kicked off in October and sees NVIDIA pitting itself against Samsung. As we reported previously, NVIDIA filed suit against Samsung and Qualcomm for patent infringement against several of NVIDIA's GPU patents.

The next move in that particular siege has just been made by Samsung. As is frequently the case in these matters, Samsung has filed a countersuit against NVIDIA, claiming "false advertising", and that they violated six of Samsung patents. Here's a quote describing the false advertising part of the suit,

Included in the filing is a false advertising claim against NVIDIA. It alleges that our statement that the SHIELD tablet, with its Tegra K1 processor, has “the world’s fastest mobile processor” is false and misleading. Samsung alleges that its Exynos 5433 processor is faster on a couple benchmarks.

Interestingly, Samsung threw Velocity Micro "under the bus" of this lawsuit as well, and is claiming they violated 8 of Samsung's patents, including the same 6 that they claim NVIDIA violated. NVIDIA has not responded publicly to Samsung's return fire, but they have shared their perspective. In the thread below we have included the full press email response from NVIDIA for your edification.

It seems that Samsung is the biggest target for lawsuits of any tech company in the world. Perhaps that says something about them... what do you think?

 

[dgstorm]

Here's the transcript from NVIDIA's press response,

"We filed patent lawsuits two months ago against Samsung and Qualcomm alleging that they’ve used our patented GPU technology without proper compensation to us.

When we filed those suits in the International Trade Commission and Delaware District Court, we fully expected that we would be sued in response. It’s a predictable tactic.

So, we weren’t surprised when, earlier this week, Samsung filed a lawsuit against us – adding in for good measure Velocity Micro, a small customer of ours based in Virginia.

Their action, filed in Virginia, focuses on eight patents. NVIDIA is alleged to have violated six. Velocity is alleged to have violated all eight.

Included in the filing is a false advertising claim against NVIDIA. It alleges that our statement that the SHIELD tablet, with its Tegra K1 processor, has “the world’s fastest mobile processor” is false and misleading. Samsung alleges that its Exynos 5433 processor is faster on a couple benchmarks.

We aren’t yet ready to respond formally to Samsung’s lawsuit. But we can’t hold back on their false contention that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 outperforms the SHIELD tablet.

Here are some benchmarks that show the extent to which the SHIELD tablet outperforms Samsung’s device. We ran both products in a standard “out of box” configuration with publicly available software.

It’s unfortunate that Samsung sued Velocity. This isn’t Velocity’s fight. But Samsung is just trying to keep its lawsuit in Virginia, which has a faster time to trial than most jurisdictions in the United States.

It can be a dangerous strategy for one of the largest companies on the planet to decide to sue one of the smallest companies in all of Virginia.

Samsung’s action does not change our analysis, or our determination. Our patent lawsuit in the ITC is moving forward and remains a far more serious problem for them."

NVIDIA Responds to Samsung Suit NVIDIA Blog

 

[Ollie]

"It’s unfortunate that Samsung sued Velocity. This isn’t Velocity’s fight. But Samsung is just trying to keep its lawsuit in Virginia, which has a faster time to trial than most jurisdictions in the United States."

The difference between Samsung VS Velocity and Nvidia VS Samsung is that Samsung has not violated any of Nvidia's patents. Qualcomm did.

There is no way Nvidia wins this. Samsung doesn't make GPUs. Kind of hard to sue someone that doesn't use your technology in their manufacturing process. How is this even being allowed?

 

[xeene]

I didn't even know that shield competed with note 4. Can shield even be used as a phone? Nvidia picked a wrong company to tango with. Better hope samsung doesn't decide to just buy them out. Samsung revenue is almost 100 times that of nvidia. Talk about David vs Goliath.

 

[dgstorm]

"It’s unfortunate that Samsung sued Velocity. This isn’t Velocity’s fight. But Samsung is just trying to keep its lawsuit in Virginia, which has a faster time to trial than most jurisdictions in the United States."

The difference between Samsung VS Velocity and Nvidia VS Samsung is that Samsung has not violated any of Nvidia's patents. Qualcomm did.

There is no way Nvidia wins this. Samsung doesn't make GPUs. Kind of hard to sue someone that doesn't use your technology in their manufacturing process. How is this even being allowed?

Not to contradict you, but isn't NVIDIA claiming that Samsung's Exynos chip also violates their GPU patents?

 

[Ollie]

Exynos is an SoC. They use Mali for the Exynos GPU.
Nvidia's beef is with ARM. Guess who licenses patents to Nvidia? ARM. Now guess who won't be getting sued by Nvidia? ARM.

 

[dgstorm]

I wonder why NVIDIA thinks they can go after Sammy on this issue, and why they don't go after every manufacturer that uses Qualcomm chips?

 

[Ollie]

I wonder why NVIDIA thinks they can go after Sammy on this issue, and why they don't go after every manufacturer that uses Qualcomm chips?

Because the lawyers Nvidia hired were the same lawyers that Apple used to rape Samsung for software patents that were violated by Google. And won.

I could understand if Samsung was making their own GPUs while using Nvidia's patents. More power to them. Or if Samsung implemented slide to unlock on their own. They did neither and we're hung out to dry by an obviously biased U.S. court system.

These types of lawsuits bother me. Sue who is responsible for violating your patents.

 

[dgstorm]

Yeah... good point. NVIDIA is suing Qualcomm too, but there seems to be no reason to go after Samsung... kinda shady...

 

[Ollie]

Nvidia says they have been trying to license with Samsung for a while now. Samsung has told them it isn't their business. If this passes through our court system as a win for Nvidia then this is bad news for everyone that owns an ARM/Qualcomm device. It would essentially allow Nvidia to sue everyone of us for having possession of one of the devices.

Apple has Qualcomm parts in their iPhones. Where is that lawsuit?

 

[KidGogle]

Apple now makes its own SoCs in the newer IPhones so suing them would be pointless because a ban on older IPhones wouldnt hurt apple

 

[Ollie]

The lawsuit isn't over SoCs. There are Qualcomm parts in the new iPhones.