For the Chip Bros

creepycoug

https://generalcounselnews.com/intel-wins-trial-over-chips-dodging-1b-plus-blow/

“Intel Corp. ducked getting hit with another multibillion-dollar damage award after a federal jury in Texas cleared it of claims it was infringing patents formerly owned by NXP Semiconductors NV on ways to speed up computers,” report Susan Decker, Matthew Bultman and Laurel Calkins in Bloomberg Law’s IP Law.

“Intel doesn’t infringe two patents owned by closely held VLSI Technology LLC, according to the federal jury in Waco, Texas. The trial was held in the same courthouse where a different jury told Intel to pay VLSI $2.18 billion over other patents last month.”

“This was the second of three trials in suits VLSI lodged against Intel over patents that until early 2019 were owned by Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors. A third trial, also before U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, is scheduled to begin in June.”

Talk about your high-stakes litigation. When the word "billion" gets thrown around, that's when you need lawyers with balls of steel.


Also, apparently Apple is doing in-house chip dev. that, according to its fans, blows Intel processors in many respecks. I'm not a chip bro so don't come at me ... bro. I only report the news.

Will be chintresting to follow ... if Apple ever weans itself off Intel, they (Intel) will have problems. There are only so many hardware manufacturers, and apple is a big one.

creepycoug

@haie should comment on Apple chips.

Sources

The problem with cases like this going to trial is that the jury is full of people who don't have any idea what the lawyers are talking about. Trying to explain the nuance of the inner workings of CPUs to your average person just doesn't go well. In the end, the result more often than not comes down to dumbing down the tech and having the better narrative. Billions of dollars awarded, not on merit, but rather whether you've convinced a jury that a product or feature corresponds to language they don't really understand.

biak1

It's imperative to uphold patent law and protect IP, despite the merits of the in-court arguments like @Sources mentioned. At least there's a trial and is captured in the public forum. You bring China into the equation and all bets are off.

It's a sad state of affairs to see companies whore themselves out to China. NXP spinoff Nexperia is headquartered in the Netherlands but owned by the CCP.

Pitchfork51

creepycoug said:

@haie should comment on Apple chips.

The MacBook air is the best value right now and it's not close.

When was the last time you could say that about apple? Crazy

haie

creepycoug said:

@haie should comment on Apple chips.

They're a bit too tart for me. Organic ones are okay though.

creepycoug

Bump. Are we? worried about Intel? Is in-house chiping a trend?

Sources

I think new entrants to the market (like Nvidia) are much bigger threats than in-house fabrication. The latter has massive barriers to entry and only a few companies can pull it off.

Going forward, I think AMD and Nvidia are the best positioned with Intel continuing to lose market share, but that has more to do with cost, performance, and innovation than a loss of sales to specific hardware aggregators like Apple.

creepycoug

Sources said:

I think new entrants to the market (like Nvidia) are much bigger threats than in-house fabrication. The latter has massive barriers to entry and only a few companies can pull it off.

Going forward, I think AMD and Nvidia are the best positioned with Intel continuing to lose market share, but that has more to do with cost, performance, and innovation than a loss of sales to specific hardware aggregators like Apple.

Interesting. But aren’t the big hardware aggregators like Apple a big issue? Those are the few companies who can pull it off and I’d imagine Intel sells a lot of chips to them.

I think the question will be: how good is in-house v. the specialist company?