Matrox suing NVidia...

[Electric Amish]

Caught this on HOCP:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/sec/legal.asp?Symbol=NVDA

amish

 

[rickn]

that lawsuit is about as frivalous and RAMBUS. They will lose.

 

[Scorpion]

How ridiculous... Corporations at work. One guy gets big, everyone wants to sue him. And then nVidia countersues... I mean we live in a sue happy ass world now and sometimes its unbelievably ridiculous.

I doubt Matrox will win. Most likely nVidia only counter-sued with the intent of making Matox drop theirs.

 

[zippy]

I dunno...but considering Twinhead is exactly the same as Dualhead...it is quite possible that there was a breach in confidentiality. Had they filed the suit after Twinhead was unveiled then it would be frivalous, however this suit was filed in February.

We shall see.

 

[Scorpion]

TwinHead or DualHead should have nothing to do with this. Everyone thinks Matrox was the first to do this. Wrong. Professional graphics cards have been doing this for about a decade now. Matrox owns no specific claim to that technology.

 

[ragiepew]

maybe the way they went about doing it (architecture) is what they are claiming is being robbed by Nvidia. It doesnt matter if they werent the ones who invented dual monitor support... Im sure they own a copywright/patent on some of their technology.

 

[zippy]

Yeah, they used a different way to do dualhead than Appian (the company which you are referring to).

 

[Michael]

The lawsuits are for improper recruiting practices and encouraging employees to break their contracts with Matrox. They are not for a specific technology

Matrox is sueing in Quebec which has a very different legal system than does the US (not based on common law). It is common to countersue, and NVIDIA is countersueing in California.

The courts will decide if NVIDIA really did violate any laws.

Michael

ps - I'm not surprised that rickn is here sticking up for NVIDIA. If the lawsuit is really "RAMBUS", then NVIDIA should be worried as RAMBUS won their lawsuits.

 

[zippy]

Michael, right. I'm just saying that twinview kinda nails that home.

 

[NFS4]

Uh oh:Q

 

[Prodigy^]

lame.....how can they possibly hold on to a technology like this?

 

[rickn]

Why dont you blow it out your diddy bag Michael. I wasn't sticking up for anyone. Suing other companies because their employees move on to greener pastures, that is why it is rediculous

 

[Electric Amish]

IT"S NOT ABOUT TECHNOLOGY!!!!!

(See Michaels post)

It's about impoper business practices.

amish

 

[Michael]

rickn - Actually, there are laws about recruiting and non-compete agreements do exist and are enforcable. If NVIDIA followed improper recruiting practices by Quebec law, then they should be sued. Like I wrote, the courts will decide who is right and if any laws were broken.

Likewise, patent and tradmark laws exist to protect companies from their property being stolen. Again, all parties get a fair hearing in a court of law. Because of the importance of IP in high tech firms, lawsuits are very common. Unfortunately, some companies use lawsuits as a competitive weapon. Since Matrox is a much smaller company and since Canadians in general do not sue as much as Americans, they must feel that there is no other way.

Otherwise, you seem to be a little thin-skinned and I didn't even say that I disagreed with you. It actually would go against my personal interests to have NVIDIA lose.

Michael

 

[rickn]

An employee leaving one company for another, there is nothing wrong with that(luring employees away from another company is the Silcon Valley way of life). If that employee shared knowledge with his new employer about his former employer, which he most certainly had NDA's, then yes they can sue(and what I am guessing is they have proof a former employee shared information about Dualhead). They are gonna have one hell of a time proving it, not to mention the fact they are in another country. Slow slow slow. Like you said, courts will decide.

Who could blame an employee wanting to move to the high life in Silicon Valley, from that god forsaken Quebec

 

[billcat]

It seems to be both, about robbing more than a few workers for technological gain of matrox's patented technology. Hiring for not just the worker but what he knows and learned working for matrox. It wouldn't be a big deal if it was one worker but more is a bigger deal. You have to look at the way they were taken from Matrox, were they given unusually higher pay/bonuses and so on that is out of the norm for typical hiring practices. If so there is def. something wrong with it and should be looked at. They do send people out to other graphics company's trying to get into their secrets this way. I hope Matrox wins. This kind of garbage has gone on in this industry and others for a while and lots of law suits have been done over it. It's nothing new and Matrox is well within it's rights to protect it's inventions. R&D takes a huge cut of the profits in this industry.

 

[Michael]

rickn - HAHAHAHAAHA! I'm from Montreal and now live in Silicon Valley! (actually the East Bay but I work in Silicon Valley).

You're not 100% right about luring employees being ok. There are laws even in California that have to be followed. I seem to remember that non-compete agreements were dealt some sort of blow a little while ago, but that wasn't in Quebec.

If it was just a case of some employees seeking the American Dream, then NVIDIA will win in court.

Michael

 

[The Wildcard]

Ahhh yeah it's all about the counter suit, hahahhaah go NVIDIA!!!

 

[Mday]

appian sues matrox

 

[rahvin]

Borland sued M$ for basically the same thing. Seems M$ paid the top 10-20 programmers at borland a $1million bonus for coming to M$. The programers agreements with borland didn't allow them to work for M$ for a year or something after leaving Borland so M$ paid them to take a year off and a $1million to leave borland. This crushed Borlands development of a bunch of programs. I believe borland lost the lawsuit....

 

[The Wildcard]

ouch......wow talk about business....

 

[NOX]

This only shows one thing, that nVIDIA knows where to go to find the best in the business!

I remember sometime back where Oprah Winfrey sued two of her employees because word got around that they were planning on writing a book about her. This was after they had signed a confidentiality agreement, and she won because of that.

It?s up to the courts to decide this one.

 

[SSP]

Who could blame an employee wanting to move to the high life in Silicon Valley, from that god forsaken Quebec

Wow there... calm down rickn. You do not want to piss around with Quebeckers. We've learned that the hard way.

Now.. Have you ever been to Quebec? Didn?t think so. I've visited Quebec and Montreal, and it?s a fu*ckin' nice place to live.

 

[Michael]

SSP - Quebecois, or, more properly, Canadians!

Michael

 

[Charles]

I have read few reviews about GeForce2 MX. But I still don't know how "exactly" the TwinView works. G400 has 2 VGA connector for its DualHead capable cards. But what about GeForce2 MX?