AMD and NVIDIA sued for possible Power Management technology patent infringement

[caveman-jim]

Tom's Hardware Guide reports on a lawsuit brought against AMD and NVIDIA for their innovative new power management technologies, that might not be that new:

Power Management Solutions, a Frisco- Texas-based company with no traceable corporate history, claims that it is entitled to damages relating to patent number 5,504,909, which the company says is infringed by AMD and Nvidia.

The patent, titled "Power management apparatus collocated on the same integrated circuit (IC) as the functional unit that it manages" was filed by Electronics Products Company in January 1994 and approved by the USPTO in April 1996. Power Management Solutions claims it has the rights to the patent, even if the USPTO did not list Power Management Solutions as the rightful owner at the time of this writing. Intel and Freescale were sued by Power Management Solutions over the same patent back in August of last year.

Read (a little) more at THG.

[Ryoko]

uh, wow.

wonder what would happen if PMS and RAMBUS sued each other...

[Dr. Zhivago]

Wonderful...

[Akumajo]

So other than money and losses to both AMD and Nvidia what else does "Power Management technology" gain from this?

[caveman-jim]

So other than money and losses to both AMD and Nvidia what else does "Power Management technology" gain from this?

Did you mean "Power Management Solutions", the company? It's patent trolling, what do you think they're after?

[Akumajo]

Did you mean "Power Management Solutions", the company? It's patent trolling, what do you think they're after?

Yeah I already mentioned other than money... but yeah what are their chances of getting anywhere and therefore causing losses for both AMD and Nvidia that was my real question among others....

[Targon]

Yeah I already mentioned other than money... but yeah what are their chances of getting anywhere and therefore causing losses for both AMD and Nvidia that was my real question among others....

I just wish that defendants in these cases would point out that if a company files a patent, but never plans to use the "invention" in a product, that it should get thrown out. The whole idea of patents in the first place is to allow a company some time to go from "invention" phase into being made into a product. This means that a company should have a VERY limited amount of time to get any "patent" into a workable product, and there should be a clear process where said invention is brought into products.

So, the way to fix the broken patent system: Make it so any patent holder shows a clear progression on the way from invention to product. This can include QUICKLY trying to market the invention to other companies to sell the idea, or to found a company to properly bring a new product to market. Any company should have a limit of ten years from patent filing to product, and if at any time after that time the invention falls out of use for five years(obsoleted by newer inventions), it then becomes public domain. Note that if it takes longer than ten years to develop a product without any significant progress, the chances of it actually making it into a product become so small, it may as well not exist.

[Dwarden]

the question is here if the company did really invented something worth patenting or just is patent troll ...

for now it seems like the 2nd

[dmanna]

the question is here if the company did really invented something worth patenting or just is patent troll ...

for now it seems like the 2nd

either way the whole Patent system is a disaster.