Re:SoftBank Takes $4B Stake in Nvidia
by dogma1138 on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @08:34PM
(#14414534)
Good luck designing a GPU without violating NVIDIAs or AMD patents.
Heck AMD technically owns the patent for an in memory framebuffer ;)
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Re:SoftBank Takes $4B Stake in Nvidia
by microcolonel on Thursday May 25, 2017 @04:39AM
(#14416063)
There's no way a patent on the general idea of an in-memory framebuffer would still be valid today, there was prior art for that in the early '80s, and it's been well over 20 years since the '80s (the earliest they could conceivably have applied for a patent on that).
Well they have patented a modern back/front buffer setup which is what used in virtually every GPU today http://www.google.com/patents/US20020113786
They also hold the patents on simulating physics on a GPU and a billion other patents.
Same goes for NVIDIA.
AMD and NVIDIA violate each other's patents all day long and many more they don't sue each other since that would be a legal balckhole for both companies.
But they will we very keen on sueing any new player.
Intel licenses a patent portfolio from NVIDIA currently for legal protections, and Samsung and Qualcomm license their GPU IP from AMD.