A small company called Implicit Networks, has managed to attract all the IT industry titans and drag them in a patent infringement lawsuit. AMD, Nvidia, Intel, Sun, Raza Microelectronics and Real Networks have been called to the Court for an alleged patent infringement regarding Implict's intellectual property.

The lawsuit has been filled with the Washington Western District Court on February the 4th. It alleges that the chip manufacturers have breached patent number 6,629,163. Although we would rather refer it with its title than with the filling number, this time it's safer to call it the 6,629,163, because the extended name is likely to puzzle you even more. The 6,629,163, also referred to as "Methods and System for Demultiplexing a First Sequence of Packet Components to Identify Specific Components Wherein Subsequent Components are Processed without Re-identifying Components" was issued on September 30, 2003.

Implicit Network claims that Intel is abusing its intellectual property in its Viiv technology. AMD is accused of the same infringement, but in another technology, namely in its graphics processing units built by its graphics subsidiary, ATI. Raza is alleged to be (ab)using in in its Alchemy series of products. The list of accusations rolls on with Nvidia taking the heat for infringing the patent in its Stant Media software. Sun is accused of patent infringement and technology abuse in its Java Media Framework.

The demultiplexing technology relies on receiving packets of a message. The process implies the identification of a sequence of message handlers for processing the message. Finally, the identified message handlers effect the conversion of the data to the target data type through various intermediate data types.

If the description sounds complicated, the process itself is a lot more painful. What's obvious is that the Implicit Network company needs money, and dragging industry giants into court may be the right method of getting it, especially as Intel is known for its patent infringements.