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GlobalFoundries Sues TSMC for Patent Infringement, Seeking Import Ban

posted by martyb on Tuesday August 27 2019, @01:00AM   
from the GF-found-something-sue-table dept.

takyon writes:

GlobalFoundries Files Patent Claims Against TSMC, Seeks to Ban Imports of Nvidia, Apple Chips

GlobalFoundries (GF) today announced that it filed lawsuits against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in the U.S. and Germany over the alleged infringement of 16 patents. The company said that it's looking to halt the import of processors made with the technologies and is seeking "significant damages from TSMC based on TSMC's unlawful use of GF's proprietary technology in its tens of billions of dollars of sales." Impacted companies include Nvidia and Apple.

Note that GlobalFoundries said it wants to stop the import of processors made with the technologies it believes are covered by its patents. The company recognized that TSMC doesn't usually import those processors into the U.S. or Germany; TSMC's customers do. That means the lawsuits could affect much of the tech industry: TSMC said that in 2018 it was "manufacturing 10,436 different products using 261 distinct technologies for 481 different customers."

The list of companies supplied by TSMC includes AMD, Nvidia, Apple, Mediatek and many others, which means that GlobalFoundries could bring the tech industry to a halt if it's allowed to stop imports to the U.S. and Germany.

If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em.

Also at Wccftech.

Related: GlobalFoundries Abandons "7nm LP" Node, TSMC and Samsung to Pick Up the Slack
GlobalFoundries Spins Off ASIC Solutions Division, Creating a New Subsidiary: Avera Semiconductor

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Original Submission

• I'm loving it I'm loving it (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @02:47AM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @02:47AM (#885907)

  This is why I love patents.

  No, I am not a lawyer, why do you ask?

• Re:I'm loving it Re:I'm loving it (Score: 5, Insightful) by rylyeh on Tuesday August 27 2019, @02:53AM (2 children)

  by rylyeh (6726) <kadathNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday August 27 2019, @02:53AM (#885914)

  The road to hell is paved with good patents.

  --
  "a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."

  Parent

  • Re:I'm loving it Re:I'm loving it (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @11:58PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2019, @11:58PM (#886503)

    Wait, there are good patents? Or are you saying the road is basically unpaved?

    Parent

    • Re:I'm loving it (Score: 2) by rylyeh on Wednesday August 28 2019, @03:24AM

      by rylyeh (6726) <kadathNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday August 28 2019, @03:24AM (#886615)

      In 2007 I found that an un-implemented patent covered my design. It was from 1993, "A 3d java applet to deliver content over the internet." The company was active - and the patent had been granted. 💩💩💩

      Turning, I saw outlined against the luminous aether of the abyss what could not be seen against the dusk of the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate-distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half-transparent; devils of a race no man might mistake—the crawling reptiles of the nameless city.

      And as the wind died away I was plunged into the ghoul-peopled blackness of earth’s bowels; for behind the last of the creatures the great brazen door clanged shut with a deafening peal of metallic music whose reverberations swelled out to the distant world to hail the rising sun as Memnon hails it from the banks of the Nile.

      --
      "a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."

      Parent