Ziilabs (Formerly 3DLabs) suing samung and Apple for graphics/video IP infringment

[tangey]

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14...over-alleged-infringement-of-graphics-patents.

cites 10 alleged infringments

cites both Samsung (for the Apple Soc manufacturing) and Apple for iphones 4S and above, and various ipods,ipads and iTV. Also cites Samsung for numerous galaxy phones and tablets.

I wonder is anything in the apple end of things related to IMG specific IP ?

Also, didn't Intel buy some/all of Ziilabs about a year ago ?...update, Intel bought a lot of the assets and licensed the tech, but the patents are still owned by Ziilabs.

 

[Laurent06]

Also, didn't Intel buy some/all of Ziilabs about a year ago ?...update, Intel bought a lot of the assets and licensed the tech, but the patents are still owned by Ziilabs.

That's what The Register wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/21/intel_gets_creative_ziilabs_gpu_tech_people/

 

[BRiT]

ZiiLabs was formerly 3DLabs, if you're wondering just who they are/were.

 

[Helmore]

I don't know that much about 3DLabs, but this sound to me like one of those cases where a tech company used to do pretty okay, then things started to turn sour and after a while they make a last ditch effort to turn some profit. Sad if true, or am I really misinformed about what's going on here?

 

[Lazy8s]

For some of these claims, Apple might be able to defend with their wins in the HTC/S3 patent suits.

 

[Wynix]

Samsung (for the Apple Soc manufacturing)

Huh? Why is it Samsungs responsibility to check if their client has breached another companies patents?

 

[idsn6]

I don't know that much about 3DLabs, but this sound to me like one of those cases where a tech company used to do pretty okay, then things started to turn sour and after a while they make a last ditch effort to turn some profit. Sad if true, or am I really misinformed about what's going on here?

The parent Creative Technology has a long history of patent litigation (and wins) against, e.g., Carmack's Reverse in Doom 3 and the iPod UI. The latter was an impetus behind Apple's subsequent decision to defensively patent whatever it could related to the iPhone.

 

[MfA]

The parent Creative Technology has a long history of patent litigation (and wins) against, e.g., Carmack's Reverse in Doom 3 and the iPod UI. The latter was an impetus behind Apple's subsequent decision to defensively patent whatever it could related to the iPhone.

Heh defensive.

 

[Exophase]

Funny how they suddenly realize these hugely successful companies are violating their patents only long after their own products have failed and not long before the patents expire.

A lot of these patents look like obvious things that have commonly been done in 3D hardware for a long time..

Are Samsung and Apple really liable for patents violated in technology they've licensed, or even bought as discrete components?

 

[MfA]

Presumably they are suing Apple and Samsung as a way of saying "buy me first and use me to sue the other guy".

 

[Ryan Smith]

The parent Creative Technology has a long history of patent litigation (and wins) against, e.g., Carmack's Reverse in Doom 3 and the iPod UI. The latter was an impetus behind Apple's subsequent decision to defensively patent whatever it could related to the iPhone.

Indeed. Creative suing someone is hardly new, unfortunately. Though I didn't realize they were doing anything with ZiiLabs these days.

 

[Grall]

The parent Creative Technology has a long history of patent litigation (and wins) against, e.g., Carmack's Reverse in Doom 3

IIRC, the doom3 lawsuit was settled, maybe even before it ever went to trial. In any case, that patent could successfully have been voided, considering the original inventor of that algorithm (whatshisname, I forget since like 10 years ago when this was first in the news) published his works in public prior to the filing date of the creative patent.

By the looks of it, creative basically stole the idea and submitted it as their own (after all, they don't have much of a history of 3D graphics rendering research, if any at all), then used the patent to hit Carmack over the head with it and blackmail him into implementing EAX sound support into doom3. Can't imagine that made Creative very many friends over at id, or in the rest of the gaming industry for that matter.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Creative Labs is the reason I can't run DOS games natively with sound, given that they bought Ensoniq and kept for themselves the tech for emulating a sound blaster on a non-ISA sound card.
Yes I would reboot into MS-DOS/FreeDOS/DR-DOS and play the real versions of great 90s games, if I could. (I can, but silent or PC speaker is not an option)

Wow I found an old rant on this.
http://www.tagor.com/antivoodoo/articles/fuz01.html
The Ensoniq card was in 1997, maybe the patent expires soon? Or there are still several years left, I'm troubled with 17-year vs 20-year patent and date of filing vs date of grant.

 

[swaaye]

Jeez just use Dosbox. It is so much easier and much more reliable/compatible than PCI ISA emulation. Sounds better too. It's also quite likely that it won't work on your modern motherboard.

But actually most old PCI sound cards have a driver available that emulates some form of ISA sound blaster in DOS. Ensoniq wasn't the only company to figure it out. Creative did indeed just use Ensoniq's driver for their own cards though.