Nvidia Wins First round in Battle with Samsung

NVIDIA received a favorable ruling from ITC in the Patent Dispute started by Samsung and Qualcomm. The judge presiding over the patent case against Samsung and Qualcomm in the U.S. International Trade Commission has returned a pretrial claim construction ruling that favors NVIDIA’s preferred construction on nearly all of the claims that were disputed.

As reported on the Nvidia Blog:

This pretrial decision, known as a Markman ruling, is the judge’s determination of the meaning and scope of the patent claims. Markman hearings are used in patent cases to define disputed terms of patents before a case goes to trial. This is an important step in determining whether Samsung and Qualcomm infringe NVIDIA’s asserted patents.

Administrative Law Judge Thomas Pender has now determined what the claim language will mean for the hearing and his ultimate decision on the merits of the case.

We’re very pleased with the outcome of the ruling, in which claim constructions favorable to NVIDIA will be applied to six out of seven disputed claims when the judge considers the question of Samsung’s and Qualcomm’s infringement. This further strengthens the patents we have asserted, and we look forward to a full hearing in late June.

As I explained in September when we announced this action, this is the first time in NVIDIA’s 22-year history that we have initiated a patent suit. Our 7,000 issued and pending patents include inventions vital to modern computing. We have chosen seven of those patents to assert in the ITC case.

Meanwhile, there has been a small development in a related case, in which Samsung sued us and one of our customers in Virginia. The judge there has denied our request to move the case to California. This has no bearing on the substance of Samsung’s case or Samsung’s asserted patents. We continue to believe Samsung’s claims have no merit, and that Samsung’s effort to sue a small company selling NVIDIA-based products in Virginia is entirely unwarranted.