Nvidia filed a countersuit against Intel for breach of contract yesterday, in which it alleged Intel had made misleading statements in an effort to weaken the graphics chipmaker’s licensing rights. The suit is also seeking to kill off Intel’s licence to Nvidia’s graphic processing and 3D computing patents. “Having breached the contract and irreparably injured Nvidia, Intel has lost the right to continue to enjoy the considerable benefit of its license to Nvidia’s patent portfolio,” reads the filing.
Seems to me that Intel is certainly attempting to legally become a full-fledged monopoly.
Intel has sued AMD & nVidia in regards to this same type of cross-licensing arrangement, both AMD & nVidia have said that they will have to cut Intel off from I.P. (patent) access/usage rights.
In both cases Intel has said they tried for months to try and reconcile the quarrel, but they failed because the other party disagreed vehemently with what Intel was trying to pursue.
My guess is that Intel contacted AMD & nVidia early on after integrating the memory controller on die in order to force the other parties into offering something extra to gain access to the new “architecture.” AMD & nVidia BOTH believed that so long as access to their I.P. was given, that Intel’s would be as well. My guess is that AMD & nVidia’s I.P.s are a free-for-all in Intel’s ‘mind,’ whereas Intel believes that AMD & nVidia must offer something more for anything new.
I seriously doubt any decent lawyer would make the mistake of signing away I.P. rights without ensuring the deal was just & fair and checking specifically for these types of loop-holes. The chances of this happening at two different companies makes it even less likely that this is a mistake on the side of AMD & nVidia.
I really need to get my hands on these contracts to give them a good ‘going over.’
If anyone knows the meat&tats, please share. A link to the contracts would be really awesome!
In the end, I hope this hurts Intel something fierce. We, sadly, need a crippled Intel, now, in order to assure continued future technology advancements.
–The loon