Intel to Pay Nvidia Technology Licensing Fees of $1.5 Billion

I'm horrified at the low quality of analysis on this (especially by the supposedly technical press) here. As I mentioned before, Intel already had access to all of NVIDIA's patents. Their IGPs already depend on access to those patents and NVIDIA would likely have a very very strong case to bar Intel from selling any IGPs (including CPUs with IGPs unless they're disabled) if Intel loses access to those patents. In neither case does the deals involve any kind of IP licensing beyond that.

The original deal with NVIDIA combined the patent cross-license and the chipset license. There was an expiry date on this agreement anyway, which I assume would have ended within 2-3 years at the most. And NVIDIA's top priority with their lawsuit against Intel likely was to argue that it was within their rights to break the agreement (and therefore lose the rights to selling Socket 775 chips too but they wouldn't care anymore) given Intel's behaviour even if the contract theoretically couldn't be broken without both parties consenting. Even if Intel didn't think NVIDIA would have managed to convince the court of that, they'd still have been in a position where 2-3 years from now they couldn't sell anymore IGPs or risk a much more likely to succeed (and even more costly) lawsuit from NVIDIA.

This isn't just Intel paying to get rid of an annoyance. They really didn't have much of a choice, and it's good for both parties (and competition in the industry) that things settled out this way.
 
Yahoo Finance said:
Under the new agreement, Intel will have continued access to NVIDIA's full range of patents...
The existing agreement [between Intel and NVIDIA for cross licensing patents] is to expire March 31, 2011.
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Has the expiration been brought forward or was it meant to expire on that date? Does this mean NVIDIA had given Intel access to its FULL RANGE of patents before and are extending it again? Why would they have agreed to that? Intel certainly didn't give NVIDIA full license to produce chipsets in return.
 
Tahir2 said:
Has the expiration been brought forward or was it meant to expire on that date? Does this mean NVIDIA had given Intel access to its FULL RANGE of patents before and are extending it again? Why would they have agreed to that? Intel certainly didn't give NVIDIA full license to produce chipsets in return.
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Wow, so it was March 31, 2011? Ouch. Then remove my "2-3 years" and replace it by "2-3 months" which makes it even a lot more dramatic. I'm surprised they didn't settle earlier.

And yes, they did give Intel access to all of their patents many years ago. And when they did so, they thought (assumed?) Intel had given them a license to all future sockets as well - it just turns out Intel disagreed afterwards when the situation actually arose. And of course NVIDIA's relations with Intel were much better back then than they have been in the last few years, so there was nothing wrong with the idea of a patent cross-license.
 
Florin said:
You're so consistently present in these kind of topics with your ooh it is so unfair lament that I've come to believe that you just enjoy trolling. I hold you capable of understanding that there are rules that apply to companies that have a monopoly position and not to others. The need to level the playing field is the very reason that they need to be treated differently.
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Actually no, your blatant hatred of any successful US company appears to blind you to the fact that all these suits that the EU brings against MS are frivolous and do absolutely nothing to help the consumer with whom they are proported to be helping. All they do is attempt to unfairly shackle successful companies and allow less capable companies to compete through unfair government mandated advantages.

To assume that rules by a governmental agency should give unfair advantages to less capable, less successful, less efficient, businesses is absolutely absurd, and it amazes me that there are people that actually believe a government MUST enforce an unfair playing field in order to encourage mediocrity.

I'm waiting for when the EU decides to sue MS for incorporating TCP/IP, or antivirus protection, or a firewall, or a paint program, or wordpad, or remote desktop while allowing competitors to continue to bundle whatever they wish.

If a company is good and has a good product people will use it. Firefox and Chrome are ample examples of that.

IMO, any company that requires government mandated advantages over its competition to stay in business is a failure... Making sure everyone has a level playing field, good. Government mandating advantages to unsuccessful companies, fail.

Regards,
SB
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Actually no, your blatant hatred of any successful US company
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Huh? :LOL:
Where'd that come from?

To assume that rules by a governmental agency should give unfair advantages to less capable, less successful, less efficient, businesses is absolutely absurd, and it amazes me that there are people that actually believe a government MUST enforce an unfair playing field in order to encourage mediocrity.
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Actually, it is 'enforce a fair playing field' and you claim you are amazed. Really, you needn't be. Anti-collusion and cartel law has been around for as long as anyone can remember, and in modern times has been one of the founding concepts which underly the creation of, among other things, the WTO. It is covered in the Treaty of Rome, which was the basis of the creation of the European Union, and it has been a core concept of US policy ever since the Sherman Act. I guess you're aware of the organisation called the FTC, but if not, there's plenty of resources out there if you're ready to become informed.

I'm waiting for when the EU decides to sue MS for incorporating TCP/IP, or antivirus protection, or a firewall, or a paint program, or wordpad, or remote desktop while allowing competitors to continue to bundle whatever they wish.
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I'm sorry, reductio ad absurbum is still considered a logical fallacy.

If a company is good and has a good product people will use it. Firefox and Chrome are ample examples of that.
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Oh stop being silly will you? In no way is the success of these 2 application programs (which, coincidentally, are given away freely - think that helps?) in any way relevant to the question of whether or not Intel or others have engaged in illegal behaviour.

In a great number of instances, courts all over the world have ruled that they did. And that is even when you take into account that offenders will usually much prefer to settle rather than risk a verdict, like in this case.

Keep repeating to yourself that all of this really just boils down to the EU bullying succesful US companies. You will find yourself amazed again and again in the future as this subject inevitably gets revisited.
 
It is a stupid policy to let Apple bundle whatever they want on their computers but not Microsoft. It is unfair and hurts consumers. If Microsoft is a monopoly then so is Apple and they should be treated the same since Apple has a higher marketshare among macs than windows does among PCs.
 
Sxotty said:
It is a stupid policy to let Apple bundle whatever they want on their computers but not Microsoft. It is unfair and hurts consumers. If Microsoft is a monopoly then so is Apple and they should be treated the same since Apple has a higher marketshare among macs than windows does among PCs.
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Yes but to most people Mac IS a PC and therefore Apple is just a minor player. I just don't believe this argument is ever going to fly as far as antitrust law is concerned.

Now, using the iTunes near monopoly as a selling point for iPhones and iPods however.. that's got teeth.
 
Davros said:
why has no one gone after opec and de beers
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Actually, they did. De Beers offered a settlement, the case is going through appeal. A decision on action against OPEC action passed the US Congress but has not progressed further yet (Bush announced he would veto it).
 
Arun said:
Wow, so it was March 31, 2011? Ouch. Then remove my "2-3 years" and replace it by "2-3 months" which makes it even a lot more dramatic. I'm surprised they didn't settle earlier.
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That's not the way these things work. The way they generally work is that in a x-license agreement you license all the patents filed/granted before the expiration date. The license for the patents doesn't end at the expiration date, it is merely the data after will new filed/granted patents don't fall under the deal.
 
aaronspink said:
That's not the way these things work. The way they generally work is that in a x-license agreement you license all the patents filed/granted before the expiration date. The license for the patents doesn't end at the expiration date, it is merely the data after will new filed/granted patents don't fall under the deal.
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Ah, okay - I remembered having read something more specific in this case, but I'm probably just confusing things :) So presumably the risk was that NVIDIA would convince the court to void the agreement completely. No matter whether that was very unlikely or very likely to succeed (don't know), the consequences would be bad enough that settling makes perfect sense (and obviously I'm not pretending that's the only reason, just probably the main one).

As I said, good for everyone.
 
Florin said:
Actually, they did. De Beers offered a settlement, the case is going through appeal. A decision on action against OPEC action passed the US Congress but has not progressed further yet (Bush announced he would veto it).
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The question is also does it have any teeth? What can be done about OPEC? Nothing. So rhetoric doesn't matter.
 
The question is does intel want to destroy nvidia or is it in their best interest to let them live a bit like intel/amd
 
rpg.314 said:
Apart from the bag of money nv is receiving, I don't see the big deal.
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Apparently, Jon Stokes originally interpreted the deal as meaning that Intel could make CPUs with NVIDIA GPUs in them, and NVIDIA could make x86 stuff. That would have been a big freaking deal indeed.

But you're right, the actual settlement just means everything stays the same and NVIDIA gets some money.
 
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