Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 271

If Nvidia labeled their mobile parts as GTS240/250, nobody would notice - because it would be a case of rebranding (in all honesty, ATI isn't a saint there either, branding some Mobility Radeon 2000 parts as 3000 series and then rebranding some 3000 chips into 4000). But in this case, the company is deliberately naming GTS240/260 as already shipping desktop parts - GTX260 and 280, both based on GT200 chip.

The list of differences doesn't stop there - we have a GTX280 consisting out of 128 shader processors (GTX280M), or 240 (the original GTX280), different memory controllers (256-bit vs. 512-bit) and the list goes on.
The potential legal part lies in the fact that if consumer types something like "GeForce GTX 280 notebook" in "accepted way of finding information relevant to consumer" such as search engines - consumer will find information and glowing reviews about desktop parts and potentially form a wrong opinion/expectation about the product itself. This is a slippery slope that none of IT companies slipped on, but as computers became a commodity, you can expect more and more watchdogs looking into the land of (rebranded) silicon.

On the other hand, Novafora is a company headed by Shlomo and Zaki Rakib, successful engineer and enterpreneur who worked together at Terayon Communication Systems. Their vision is to create products to video content processing for the Internet era. With this acquisition, there is little doubt that companies such as Qualcomm, Freescale, TI, Philips, Nvidia and others are getting some competition.

Only time will tell how Novafora will pan out, but there is some serious engineering talent in Israel, and being backed by funds that have over 1.3 billion USD just might result in a new star on system-on-chip market.

Last great architecture to come from Israel was no other than Intel Core architecture, also known as "Chip that saved Intel's bacon".

Since Apple uses technology outlined in EMG's patent and since Apple does not have a license to the technology, EMG claims that it has "has suffered damage in an amount to be proved at trial." EMG also said that "Apple threatens to continue to engage in the acts complained of herein and, unless restrained and enjoined, will continue to do so, all to Plaintiff's irreparable injury."

In the suit, EMG asks the court to confirm that its patent is valid and enforceable and that Apple has infringed on the patent; to prevent Apple from infringing on its patent; to order Apple to report how it will comply with the injunction within 30 days and to award damage, "including a reasonable
royalty and/or lost profits" as well as "pre-judgment and post-judgment interest."