Nvidia sued over semiconductor patent infringements
Xperi along with subsidiaries Invensas Corporation and Tessara Advanced Technologies recently filed a lawsuit against Nvidia’s alleged misuse of patents tied to semiconductor technology. Xperi CEO Jon Kirchner stated in the latest earnings call that Nvidia has been using the patents in question for a number of GPUs and processors, but the green team never bought the licenses. In order to defend their intellectual property rights, the companies filed the case with the Delaware Federal Court asserting 5 patents.
Some of the intellectual properties pertaining to Xperi and its subsidiaries include imaging codecs like DTS:X, IMAX, Virtual:X, plus semiconductor packaging and interconnect technologies. The list of clients includes Sony, LG, Samsung, Tencent and Alibaba. As for the patents, these refer to voltage circuits with zero temperature coefficient, planarized semiconductor interconnect topography, and semiconductor packaging/manufacturing methods.
It looks like Samsung and Broadcom infringed on some of these patents, as well, and Xperi forced them to enter multi-year patent licensing agreements in court. Regarding these particular lawsuits, Kirchner commented that, of the five patents used by Nvidia, three have already been litigated with Broadcom and Samsung, so the company already knows what to go after.
The lawsuit does not publicly list the damages and royalty demands. Xperi is currently listed with a ~US$1.2 billion market cap, while Nvidia is clearly the larger company with ~US$102.7 market cap, so Xperi could demand millions in damages, before forcing Nvidia to enter any licensing contract.
