14 DAY TRIAL // Chip manufacturer AMD has just filled a lawsuit against the Korean conglomerate Samsung for alleged infringements of the company's patents regarding chips and displays fabrication technology.
The lawsuit has been filled with the Northern California district court a few weeks ago, and concerns the infringement of Advanced Micro Devices' technology patent numbers 5,545,592; 4,737,830; 5,248,293;5,559,990; 5,377,200; and 6,784,879, registered with US Federal Trading Commission.
The above-mentioned patents are related to fabrication technologies. For instance, patent 5,545,592 covers the Nitrogen Treatment for Metal-Silicide Contact, while the others are related to Integrated Circuit Structure having Compensating Means for Self Inductance Effects, Insulated Gate Field Effect Device with a Smoothly Curved Depletion Boundary in the Vicinity of the Channel-Free Zone, Memories with Burst Mode Access, and Power Saving Feature for Components Having Built-In Testing Logic. The last patent is 6,784,879, also known as Method and Apparatus for Providing Control of Background Video, which has been registered by the former ATI graphics division.
The lawsuit has been filled as Advanced Micro Devices alleges the fact that Samsung abused its intellectual property in DRAM, SRAM and NAND flash memory products. According to AMD representatives, the x86 chip manufacturer tried to settle the issues by asking Samsung to get licenses for the infringed patents. Moreover, AMD engineers demonstrated that Samsung's memory products are infringing the patents, but the Korean conglomerate did not rush to respond.
According to AMD, Samsung currently uses AMD's Power Saving Feature for Components Having Built-In Testing Logic patent in its memory products, cell phones, MP3 players, TVs and printers, while ATI's proprietary technology is widely used in Samsung's LN-TI953H series of TV-sets.
If the jury's decision favors AMD, the company could force Samsung into licensing its technology, thus squeezing important money to get back on track.