Judge rules that Samsung and Qualcomm do not infringe Nvidia patents

According to an International Trade Commission judge, Samsung and Qualcomm do not infringe on Nvidia patents. The latter had filed a lawsuit about a year ago for alleged infringement of his patents for graphics techniques.

Nvidia announced the news itself through its blog. Thomas Pender, who is a judge at the US International Trade Commission, gave a preliminary ruling that both Samsung and Qualcomm are innocent of patent infringement. Nvidia said it will appeal the decision by asking the full committee to rule on the judge’s verdict. As a result, it may take some time before a final decision is made.

The judge assessed three patents related to graphics creation techniques owned by Nvidia. Pender ruled that Samsung and Qualcomm do not infringe two of these patents. The companies did infringe on the third patent, but this was declared invalid by the court. Nvidia is therefore going to ask the American patent office to have the third patent declared valid again.

The lawsuit was filed last year by Nvidia with the International Trade Commission, an organization that can, among other things, enforce a sales freeze on products that infringe patents, or order companies to pay damages. Nvidia believed that several Samsung mobile devices, both with Samsung’s own Exynos SOCs and Qualcomm SOCs, are infringing patents. This includes Galaxy smartphones in the Note series and the S4.