Transmeta Sues Intel for Patent Infringement 161
Cr0w T. Trollbot writes "Today Transmeta filed suit against Intel for patent infringement. From the article: 'The suit [...] alleges that Intel infringed upon ten of Transmeta's patents. The patents cover computer architecture and power efficiency technologies.' Transmeta offered a low-power x86 processor until last year which used Transmeta's vaunted 'code morphing' software."
Go figure (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to see here, move along... (Score:2, Insightful)
Most likely outcome: settlement involving a small amount of money and a cross-licensing agreement. No judge in their right mind would grant an injunction against shipping the majority of the world's processors, no matter what the infringement.
now just another sleezy IP company eh (Score:4, Insightful)
So, when was Pentium 3?
They waited until they were no longer in the market to sue so they cant be counter sued as effectively. Surely they must have done something they could be sued for, go get them anyway. This just smells funny. If your IP is so great why couldn't they make salable product out of it?
I think these IP lawsuits work like games...the one crying cheater loudest is probably the guilty one
Re:Nothing to see here, move along... (Score:3, Insightful)
the only thing i can think is that if i remember right.. Intel owns the ARM
or i am wrong.. not sure
anyone think the case might actually have merit? (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems like everyone so far is poo-pooing the lawsuit.
Has anyone considered that it might actually be possible that Transmeta really does have valid patents, and Intel really might be infringing them?
Re:now just another sleezy IP company eh (Score:5, Insightful)
Competition drives technology forward.
Patents effectively outlaw competition.
Therefore, patents kill the need for the company holding the patent to advance their own technology any further.
The only reason these sorts of patents still exist are because some very powerful corporations can effectively stunt the market using them; by default nobody can compete on the same playing field since to do so they would have to have licenses to use the technologies in question, and companies like Intel and IBM own literally thousands of patents on just about everything. So they license their patent libraries among themselves, forming a sort of corporate clique in which outsiders are persona non grata.
Maybe once enough of these patents bite companies like Intel in the ass, things will change. Unfortunately I think it'll take a while for that to happen.
Re:I used to think they were cool... (Score:3, Insightful)
This has happened many times in history and the 'Ford's in those cases have had to either pay up to the inventor or had really good lawyers.
That's what patents are for. Why don't you go file a few of your own instead of being pissed for no reason?
You said it (Score:4, Insightful)
"Last year, Transmeta laid off 67 employees in a restructuring plan aimed to focus more heavily on IP and the phase out its less profitable processors." (emphasis added)
Patent portfolio operation?!? Whatever do you mean??
Re:Why all the Transmeta-bashing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You said it (Score:2, Insightful)
Ideas should be free. If Transmeta doesn't create any products anymore, why shouldn't anybody else be able to do it? And even if Transmeta was still creating products, why should that exclude others from using good ideas in their products too? "Intellectual property" sucks.
Re:Sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
The guys a Transmeta are doing the best use of patents I can think of.
They failed at developing a product, for more than just technological reasons, and now they want to get paid for stuff they invented and other people supposedly implemented.
That is how patents are supposed to work, there is no failure.
The problem is that patents as a whole, even when they do what they are supposed to do, and nobody abuses the system, just don't work well for the community.
It's would be great that Transmeta got paid for what they developed, but if they are succesful in this, everybody else loses.
Chip companies will have more legal work regarding patents, and that is less money for R&D. Lots of paths of development will be closed by other companies patents, so innovation actually happens more slowly.
For me, the problem is that some people think that patents are granted, because somehow the "inventor" deserves to get paid for what he developed. That is something like a subsidy to inventors. You invent something, and the government gives you a monopoly on whatever you invented. In the old days, it was a great deal for everybody. A player invented something, and only 14/20 years later, all the industry was that one step ahead. Usually, new technologies took more than that time to develop, so all the competitors went faster due to this.
Right now, it just doesn't work, because companies achieve the same breakthroughs with years of difference, and when you get a patent on something, you don't advance the knowledge in that area, you just slow it, for 20 years.
Insanity is doing the same dumb thing over and ove (Score:3, Insightful)
It would seem that since Transmeta no longer makes CPUs, they are somewhat safe from the big gun defense in industrial patent wars -- being counter-sued for violating 116 Intel patents. But their patents can still be invalidated, and you can just bet that Intel will try.
Still, though, this is all kind of stupid and it is a bit hard to see how anyone other than a few lawyers benefits from this sort of stuff. If a patent is a license granted by government for the public good, why are we still issuing the damn things when they apparently no longer promote the public good?