3dfx vs Nvidia Patent litigation...

[rahvin]

http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/quotes_news.asp?symbol=TDFX%60&selected=TDFX

For those that are patent unaware, the markman hearings basically determine the validity of the patent, 3dfx is now asking for a summary judgment of infringment. If this is true and the court has rejected all of nvidia's claims and accepted the validity of 3dfx's patent on multi-texturing then nvidia is going to be paying 3dfx some serious cash in damages. Gonna be interesting to watch this play out, might see nvidia take that 400million in cash they just got and do a hostile takeover of 3dfx...

 

[Finality]

Shouldn't 3dfx be suing ATI, S3 and Matrox as well?

Funny part is both stocks are down. I suspect that NVidia will take this to the appeals courts and it could drag on for a few more months before anything is resolved by which time both companies would have moved onto next gen. You could also argue that 3dfx will want the courts to stop Nvidia chips being sold. Something unlikely to happen.

 

[Marty]

AFAIK, 3dfx has a poison pill in place to prevent a hostile takeover.

Marty

 

[Truro]

Maybe the other companies will avoid litigation costs after seeing nvidia's chain getting pulled, and simply pull out their checkbooks. Whip the biggest bully on the block, and the rest of them cave.

 

[Czar]

Sucks, we are now seeing another Rambus in the graphics part of the computer industry, hope nVidia just buys them out or someone else before its to late. I hope it wont be nVidia though, would be better if someone else did it, wouldnt be surprised if VIA would buy them.

 

[Fozzie]

"If this is true and the court has rejected all of nvidia's claims and accepted the validity of 3dfx's patent on multi-texturing then nvidia is going to be paying 3dfx some serious cash in damages."

Actually my understanding is it currently isn't that serious. I'm worse with legalese then tech talk, but from what I can tell the ruling was on what they will argue about so to speak.

"These types of rulings, often called claim construction, or "Markman," orders construe the scope of asserted patent claims and, thus, provide the parameters of what would be considered infringing conduct."

We'll have to see what happens from here. The nVidia suit also throws a new spin on things.

 

[Noriaki]

Argg...I suddenly feel very dirty at having a 3dfx card in my system.

I hope that money order I sent TaylorD hurries so he can send me my Radone.

 

[rahvin]

<<Actually my understanding is it currently isn't that serious. I'm worse with legalese then tech talk, but from what I can tell the ruling was on what they will argue about so to speak.>>

The markman hearing is more significant than that, over time it has become the deciding decision in infringment, it's a very through process (took 2 years in this case).

<<Shouldn't 3dfx be suing ATI, S3 and Matrox as well?>>

Nope they didn't violate the patent, they developed thier own form of multi-texturing. According to the lawsuit nvidia copied 3dfx's patented method of multi-texturing exactly, the bit output from their multi-texturer was identical to 3dfx's. 3dfx didn't patenet multi-texturing, they patented the method they used to do it.

<<AFAIK, 3dfx has a poison pill in place to prevent a hostile takeover.>>

Yes and at the current stock price I doubt that will have much effect to be honest, nvidia could definately get 3dfx for cheaper than 400 million at this point, even with the poison pill.

Here is a quote from another board explaining the Markman hearing process...

<<My understanding is that, by these rulings, the judge has determined the four corners of the 3dfx patents -- the boundaries, if you will.

By its motion for summary adjudication, 3dfx will seek to show that the infringing elements of the TNT products are within these boundaries. When that is accomplished, the judge will have found infringement. Then, damages will have to be proven. As shown by the cut and pasted Jasmine post (assuming the accuracy of its math), the damages phase should be the easy part, and the point which prompts settlement.>>

 

[pm]

It would largely be a waste of money for nVidia to acquire 3Dfx. For one thing, I think many key employees would walk - fine the majority would stay, but the key guys probably would head out. The STB card section is something that nVidia is not interested in (which could be spun off or sold, but this makes little sense and would be a drain on a company nVidia's size). About the only thing that would be really useful would be 3Dfx's IP suite and the elimination of a competitor, but these things could both be more easily accomplished for less than $400m: as far as the former, 3Dfx would settle for far less than $400m - in fact they need the money badly and would settle for far less rather than sit in litigation for years, and as far as the latter, just wait... the brain drain at 3Dfx is sad to watch and even if this upcoming board is a success, it will be hard for them to compete after this now that they are losing many key people.

 

[Finality]

Its more than an ip portfolio its also the 3dfx brand name that you get.

 

[Sunner]

One thing I've never really understood about that case is...
The TNT didnt actually do multitexturing, did it?
Didnt it have 2 pipelines, that could do one pix/clock each, as opposed to the V2 which has 1 pipeline, which could do 2 tex/cycle or 1 pix/cycle?

 

[Killer Ape]

The thing to watch is that with the XBox using an nVidia chip, Microsoft may have an interest in preventing anything that could impede production of their PS2/Dolphin/Dreamcast killer. If 3DFX gets too agressive with damages MS could work behind the scenes to cool 3DFX's jets ala the OEM market. In 3DFX's recent report they cited lack of penetration into the OEM market as a reason for less then expected earnings. If MS turns up the heat on OEMs to use nVidia rather than 3DFX, then that would be very bad.

Pretty paranoid huh ?

Then again, MS is already a little sore from recent litigation itself...

 

[rahvin]

Killer ape,

Their OEM penetration couldn't be worse, litterally. They have no significant OEM's. They have nothing to lose.

 

[Killer Ape]

I agree. I admitted to being paranoid .

But that's one of the reasons they cited for poor earnings, especially in the European market I believe. So if they want to put on a good show for their investors, then they need to at least make forays into that market, which is largely dominated by nVidia and ATI and mastermind-ed by MS. I'm talking selling to OEM system builders here, not board manufacturers. Their cause is still pretty hopeless unless they can come up with a mobile chipset to compete with the MX and Rage and let loose the Voodoo family to OEM board makers, like pre-V3 days.

I think a quick cash fix from nVidia will just slow the inevitable, which is a shame.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

OT, but PM, congrats on the Elite member status. IMO, you are very deserving of it.

 

[beer]

They're ligitation may remind us of Rambus.
Their industry reputation may remind us of Rambus.

But for the love of god their stock price needs to start looking like Rambus

 

[NFS4]

Teehee This reminds me of that Chris Rock sketch about OJ Simpson's aquittal. It goes something like this:

&quot;OJ, OJ. Everybody's talking about OJ getting off. Black people too happy, and white people too upset. I see brothers running down the street saying 'Hey, we won.' Won what? We ain't won sh!t&quot;

 

[beer]

NFS4 you nef.

 

[pen^2]

<< The thing to watch is that with the XBox using an nVidia chip, Microsoft may have an interest in preventing anything that could impede production of their PS2/Dolphin/Dreamcast killer. If 3DFX gets too agressive with damages MS could work behind the scenes to cool 3DFX's jets ala the OEM market. In 3DFX's recent report they cited lack of penetration into the OEM market as a reason for less then expected earnings. If MS turns up the heat on OEMs to use nVidia rather than 3DFX, then that would be very bad. >>


by using two chip they can barely match a single chip that is memory bandwidth limited. if 3dfux had to develop a solution for x-box, it better not be 16 vsa100s. then again, they might pull another massive delay like they did on v5...

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

<< &quot;OJ, OJ. Everybody's talking about OJ getting off. Black people too happy, and white people too upset. I see brothers running down the street saying 'Hey, we won.' Won what? We ain't won sh!t&quot; >>

&quot;Everyday when i look in my mailbox there aint no OJ PRIZE...&quot;

 

[NFS4]

LOL! I forgot that part!!

 

[NOX]

<< << &quot;OJ, OJ. Everybody's talking about OJ getting off. Black people too happy, and white people too upset. I see brothers running down the street saying 'Hey, we won.' Won what? We ain't won sh!t&quot;>> >>



<< &quot;Everyday when i look in my mailbox there aint no OJ PRIZE...&quot; >>


LOL...! (wiping the tears from my eyes!)

Seriously though, I think this is far from being Rambus. The Judge must have found something to find Nvidia liable of patent infringement. Until I see the same for Rambus, I don?t think that?s a fair assessment.

 

[BFG10K]

Sucks, we are now seeing another Rambus in the graphics part of the computer industry, hope nVidia just buys them out or someone else before its to late.

Amen to that Czar. RAMBUS is a company who ship crap products and try to sue everyone around them to stay afloat.

I don't think nVidia should buy 3dfx. They should just let the lawsuits continue until 3dfx run out of revenue and fall over by themselves. After all, if nVidia were to buy 3dfx they would just lose from a dud investment anyway.

 

[SJ]

This is about 3dfx's patent infringement claims that they filed in 97 or 98. Wait till Nvidia reems 3dfx with their 5 patent infringements. If 3dfx wins their case against Nvidia, theres an even better chance Nvidia will own 3dfx in a sense in a year or two.

 

[3dfxAlf]

SJ....
Would those be the very same claims that the court dismissed? You did read the information on this, right?

Sorry... I had no intention of coming within miles of a thread like this on this forum, but this last one is pretty far out.