- Tuesday, 7 July 2009
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A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude - Oscar Wilde
AMD taken to court by Texan firm
AMD IS BEING COURTED, quite literally, by Texan firm Lonestar Inventions, which is filing a case of patent infringement against the chipmaker in one of Texas' district courts.
The chipmaker is being accused of breaching ominous sounding patent number 5208725, or to the laymen amongst you, "High Capacitance Structure in a Semiconductor Device".
For those who require further elaboration, Lonestar is basically claiming the AMD chipsets and graphics cards inside Nintendo's Wii, including the ATI 215-0669049 graphics processor and the Radeon HD 4870, infringes on its patent.
The filing goes on to allege AMD might have even bunged bits of the patented tech into other devices it's currently selling.
The patent itself was apparently issued in May of 1993 to one Osman E Akcasu who signed the rights over to Lonestar.
Purportedly AMD had been sent a stern memo by Lonestar a while back, asking the Chip giant to desist from infringing on its patent, but Chip-Kong refused.
When The INQ asked AMD about all this the company told us "While we are aware of the suit we have not yet been served with the complaint and as such are unable to comment at this time."
An AMD spokeswoman also assured the INQ she would probe the matter more thoroughly and keep us abreast of any developments. µ
L'Inq
The filing
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A most beautifully re-written article, but a little derivative, may I venture to say
http://www.itexaminer.com/amd-sued-over-graphics-chips.aspx
The filing is not the patent number...
These capacitor structures are used by everyone in the semiconductor industry. AMD surely has deviated from the patent by using different materials in the dielectric stack. This will go no where.
I prefer Sylvie. Again.
I wonder if Osman E Akcasu ver built anything or just theorized his patent.
Does Lonestar build things with this patent or are the just another of those groups of Lawyers making money off patents (Me thinks of Acacia and streaming media).
You have to think that a patent from 1993 would have died, that the original inventor has had time to profit from his ideas and that now the "invention" is open source.
We should have left Texas in the hands of Mexico... I have never met a Texas I liked. This just furthers my case.
We should have left Texas in the hands of Mexico... I have never met a Texan I liked. This just furthers my case.
Ah, yes! Texas East District Court, the place where you file your lawsuit if you're a patent troll.