Patent Case: OPTi vs NV

G

Geo

Mostly Harmless
Legend
MOD: This thread has been bumped. Please look at the dates before replying.

So what's up with this? http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060425/20060425005748.html?.v=1

NV references this case briefly in some of their own filings, tho with the usual "Yawn! No merit" kind of treatment. Looks like they lost a round here, tho we all know there are more often than not many twists and turns in these things before the end.

OPTi apparently has made this kind of thing their business model in recent years, so I don't see them going away with out some jingle in their pocket or final defeat in the legal process.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200209/ai_ziff31734

So far as I can tell they have not pursued ATI on the same patents, tho that is not necessarily indicative one way or the other on whether they'd like to have a go there at a later date --sometimes a test case is pursued first.

Edit: Worth noting this is an OPTi PR tho --NV might report it differently. ;) The content-rich <kaff> OPTi website can be visited (in its entirety, apparently) at www.opti.com
 
Heh, I didn't realise OPTi were still alive and kicking... I remember reinstalling many an OPTi 929 ISA sound card when rebuilding users PCs back in the day - Godamn awful devices to configure and get working properly they were too. (Don't sue me OPTi!!)
 
"Exist" only to defend their patent portfolio, apparently, and by their own admission at that.

I'm thinking I had an OPTi mainboard in the early 90s, before I got a little more money and sense and went ASUS/ABIT. Or at least it had OPTi chipset on it --no-name board, I'm thinking. The kind you buy from a guy who goes "Psst!" at a monthly computer show (or did back then before the internet mostly killed such)
 
Just bumping this thread since it looks like there's yet another part to this most ridiculous saga: http://home.businesswire.com/portal...d=news_view&newsId=20070205006070&newsLang=en

So, after reaching an agreement (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32496 ) to pay a quarterly fee as long as predictive snooping is used in their products, NVIDIA is now saying they are no longer using it, before even paying the first chunk of money! I wonder what driver release disabled it, and if there's any effect on performance, hmm...
 
The way that's worded, I can't tell if they paid the $7M "alternate" or not. What do you think? I was under the impression the deal was "$7M lump sum or up to $9M in quarterlies"
 
Geo said:
The way that's worded, I can't tell if they paid the $7M "alternate" or not. What do you think? I was under the impression the deal was "$7M lump sum or up to $9M in quarterlies"
Click to expand...
Considering this: "NVIDIA has discontinued the use of the Predictive Snooping technology that NVIDIA had licensed from OPTi", I would assume they didn't pay the $7M, but the latter part of the PR is indeed badly worded... :)
 
Well, OPTi apparently got their $11M pound of Nvidia's flesh previously, so they will live to suck someone else's blood again someday.
 
Haha I remember owning a Opti chipset based 486 board back in the day. It was pretty stable too running Windows 3.xx with a 40MB HDD.
 
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