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Sony PlayStation (Games) Government The Courts Hardware News

Firm Sues Sony Over Cell Processor 330

Posted by Zonk from the just-what-they-didn't-need dept.
An anonymous reader writes that earlier this month, Sony received word of a lawsuit from a Newport Beach company called Parallel Processing. They've filed against the electronics giant alleging that the Cell processor, used in the PlayStation 3, infringes on a patent they own. They've made the somewhat outrageous demand that every infringing chip (and console) be 'impounded and destroyed'. From the article at Next Generation: "The patent, 'Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory' was issued in October 1991. It describes a high-speed computer that breaks down a program 'into smaller concurrent processes running in different parallel processors' and resynchronizes the program for faster processing times ... Parallel Processing said that Sony's alleged actions have caused 'irreparable harm and monetary damage' to the company."
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Firm Sues Sony Over Cell Processor More

Firm Sues Sony Over Cell Processor

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  • If things weren't going bad enough for the PS3, then this comes along.

    • Re:hah (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:03AM (#20057661)
      Yes, let's all stroke ours Wiis over this news.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's okay, Parallel Processing could only have found out about the patent infringement by violation of the DMCA and illegal hacking of Sonys PS3 - so they'll be going to jail for a long time.
    • Actually, if they were successful at generating an order for PS3s to be impounded and destroyed, it might create a pretty high demand for people to go buy them, just for the purpose of resisting whatever authority might try to do so. I sure would, it'd be fun.

  • What's next? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vigmeister ( 1112659 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @10:57AM (#20057557)
    Are they going to go after AMD and Intel for their multicore CPUs?

    Cheers!

    • Re:What's next? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:10AM (#20057791) Homepage Journal
      No. Their patent appears to be directed at a specific subset of multiprocessing known as MIMD (Multiple Instruction Multiple Data) [wikipedia.org] processors. The key to their "invention" is a processor that sits in front of the various processing elements and divvies up the chores to ensure that all processor elements are well fed.

      To be perfectly honest, I don't understand why they're suing Sony and not IBM. I suppose it's probably tactical, especially since Sony is actually selling the chips as opposed to IBM who's mostly talking about them at this point. (IBM fabs the chips on Sony's behalf.)

      It's hard to be sure, but this sounds like a patent troll case. The only thing that muddies the waters a bit is that this "International Parallel Machines, Inc." actually exists and sells products:

      http://www.ipmiplc.com/ [ipmiplc.com]

      • Re:What's next? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Frothy Walrus ( 534163 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:16AM (#20057875)
        look at the site -- they make PLC's [wikipedia.org], not general-purpose processors. they're not losing a goddamn cent to Sony or IBM.

        • Re:What's next? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:21AM (#20057953) Homepage Journal
          Which makes little to no difference to patent applications. If you own a patent, the damages are in lost licensing fees for the patented technology. That's how inventors get rich. They patent an idea, then sell the rights to use the patent. Meanwhile, they get to stop working on their invention and rake in the dough.

          My point about their business muddying the waters is that their business adds a certain amount of legitimacy to their claims of owning the rights to and licensing such technologies. It does not matter if they produce the tech themselves or not.

        • Re:What's next? (Score:5, Funny)

          by rizzo320 ( 911761 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @03:01PM (#20061361)

          look at the site -- they make PLC's, not general-purpose processors


          Yes, it does seem they make "Patent Lawsuit Cases" :-)

      • To be perfectly honest, I don't understand why they're suing Sony and not IBM
        The Cell is jointly developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba, it is not designed by IBM and sold to Sony. IBM are fab'ing it, but they also fab chips for AMD, and it wouldn't make sense to sue IBM for a patent infringed by AMD.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by klingens ( 147173 )
          What chips is IBM making for AMD exactly?

          From what I remember, IBM licensed/sold/whatever SOI-technology to AMD. Not actually doing any fabbing. AMD uses their own (Dresden) fabs and has Chartered (CPUs) and TSMC (ATI GPUs) doing some fabbing for them.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jd ( 1658 )
        I'll give you an excellent reason for them suing Sony and not IBM. IBM is an 8000 lb. gorilla that has an army of vampiric lawyers so skillful they can not only draw blood from a stone, they can even draw blood from SCO. Sony's lawyers, on the other hand, have trouble with lawsuits against preteen fileswappers and computerless grannies. If you want to leech money, it's perfectly obvious which one you're more likely to leech successfully from.

        And, no, the patent is not valid. Such devices have existed for

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Intron ( 870560 )
          Back in the 70s C.mmp used a crossbar switch to connect multiple shared memory to multiple processors with local memory. It covers claims 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 but claims 4 and 5 appear to allow a processor to simultaneously write data to multiple memories (local and shared). I can't think of a parallel architecture that did this.

          • Re:What's next? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @03:26PM (#20061733) Homepage Journal
            Sequent's SHRIMP architecture was quite nice for this kind of work. (And you won't hear me say a whole lot nice about Sequent, having worked under Tim Witham - yes, the former OSDL guy - for some time.) The DoD was also developing with DARPA the iWarp [dtic.mil] engine. Download a copy of the report before it gets deleted by paranoid Homeland Insecurity guys! :)

            I also saw a lot of self-organizing work on the Transputers. These were fairly low-power processors (but respectable for the time) that could be trivially wired into a mesh as large as you like. Processes could be divided by the hardware pretty much as the hardware liked. Both code and data could also be declared MOBILE.

            Weird list of some historical events in parallel processing [vt.edu] - there's a few other examples in there.

      • Re:What's next? (Score:5, Informative)

        by russotto ( 537200 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:32AM (#20058123) Journal

        To be perfectly honest, I don't understand why they're suing Sony and not IBM.


        IBM has been involved in the parallel processing field for a long time. I'm sure they have plenty of patents which pre-date and overlap this one and probably quite a few that International Parallel Machines is arguably infringing on.

        The stuff in Claim 1 of the patent (5,056,000) is basic multi-processor stuff which certainly wasn't actually novel in 1989 (when the patent was filed). And the Cell doesn't seem to violate it anyway. It appears to be Claim 6 they are suing over. Claim 6 describes a particular way of partitioning processing power in a MIMD system, but again I doubt it was novel in 1989.

        They may not be trolling. But if they go against IBM, or if IBM intervenes, I don't think they can win.

        • Re:What's next? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @12:42PM (#20059237)
          My guess is that their addition to multi-core processing, and the meat of the alleged infringement, revolves around dynamic, exclusive assignment of chunks of shared memory to each worker core.

          Setting up and stacking shared memory so that each worker core doesn't have to copy-in its working data set, nor copy out its results and still maintain data integrity gives a huge performance advantage. That is, core A is assigned shared memory chunk M1 exclusively, and when it's done processing, the control core assigns exclusive control of M1 to core B, so it can continue processing; Rather than core A copying in the contents of M1, then processing and then copying back out its results.

          Simply shifting exclusive control saves you the time of shuffling all that data between each core and shared memory and lets do more with the same local-memory and memory bandwidth. Even today, most of the multi-threaded apps I've seen burn a considerable number of cycles copying 'shared' data in to a worker thread/core and results back out.

          I would be surprised if that wasn't novel hardware design in 1989, though I'm certainly open to the possibility that it wasn't.
          Before 1989 I was a bit more concerned with the health risks associated with exposure to cooties.
      • Pardon my ignorance if I sound stupid,

        I think Sony's defence would revolve around prior art and the 'plurality of multi access memory modules equal to the number of cores' part. I don't buy their patent infringement argument for a variety of reasons (others have pointed these out and more).

        I should have stated that I expected them to try and go after AMD/Intel if they won this lawsuit (highly unlikely- I hope...). Reason I say that is... If the memory module count did not deter them from trying to sue Sony,

  • Patent Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @10:59AM (#20057589)
    Patent link [uspto.gov]. Should be in the summary, IMO.

  • in other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by yorugua ( 697900 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:00AM (#20057623)
    ... Parallel Processing receives an undisclosed amount of cash from MS.

    Thanks god IBM quit building those RS/6000 SP2 system parallel thingies.

    • Parallel Processing receives an undisclosed amount of cash from MS.

      You mean like in the Immersion case, where Microsoft settled and licensed the methods and Nintendo turned out to have been licensing it all along? This case appears very different. Unlike the traditional 3-core symmetric multiprocessor in the Xbox 360, the Cell CPU is a 1-core CPU connected to several programmable DSPs, each of which has its own address space. This asymmetric NUMA scheme is what the first claim of the patent [uspto.gov] appears to describe.

  • I have a patent for an electromechanical device that like a human brain is able to make choices based on a series of logical assessments of sensed data, like "they're both true" or "neither are true." I would like royalties please, or burn all the computers in the world, thanks!
  • So the end of 60's, we had multics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics) and one of the cool things was "process memory"... To me it seems to be splitting hairs; multiple processors, actually multiple processes accross those processors, having their own and/or sharing memory.
  • An errant Sony Jet has crashed into the HQ for Newport Beach based company Parallel Processing resulting in a 150 foot fireball.

  • not quite outrageous (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mr_death ( 106532 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:06AM (#20057721)
    They've made the somewhat outrageous demand that every infringing chip (and console) be 'impounded and destroyed'.

    The US Constitution gives inventors "... the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." If they do win at trial, destruction of every infringing device is within their rights.

    Whether they have a proper patent, and if Sony infringes on that patent, is an exercise for the reader and jury.
    • The legality of the demand doesn't mean it's not outrageous. That is close to suggesting that morality is equal to legality.

    • Re:not quite outrageous (Score:5, Informative)

      by swillden ( 191260 ) * <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:40AM (#20058241) Journal

      The US Constitution gives inventors "... the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

      No, it doesn't. Rather, it gives Congress the authority to grant exclusive rights (for limited times). The distinction is important, because Congress still gets to decide if such rights should be granted and what their precise scope should be.

      If they do win at trial, destruction of every infringing device is within their rights.

      Perhaps, but I doubt it. I haven't studied patent law much, but I do know that the purpose of patent law is to encourage the use of new inventions, so giving that much power to the patent holder would defeat the purpose. The law and the courts don't look kindly on patent owners who want to lock up the technology and prevent anyone from using it. Instead, what they want to see is patent licensing, so that inventors are compensated for their work and for their decision to publish their invention via the patent process, but so that the invention is used for the benefit of the society who funds the enforcement of the law.

      In the case of infringement, courts look for the most equitable way to repair the damage to the plaintiff, and there's no way that ordering Sony to buy back and destroy every PS3 is equitable. It would be unnecessarily injurious to all of the innocent people who bought PS3s and would force Sony to pay amounts that far exceed the value of the processors in the units (since Sony would have to buy back and destroy the entire units, not just the CPUs). Not only that, but it would do little or nothing to make the plaintiff whole, since they wouldn't get a penny from such destruction. It would be an absolutely senseless remedy and if any court ordered it, it would be overturned on appeal.

      The plaintiff can ask for whatever remedy they want, but this one is pure grandstanding, and there's no way they can believe that they would get it -- and it's extremely unlikely that they even want it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by samkass ( 174571 )
      If they do win at trial, destruction of every infringing device is within their rights.

      It's within their rights to request, but court precedent tends to favor a more rational approach to damages. They would have to prove that the continued existence of these devices poses some sort of additional potential damage over and above a merely monetary judgment, I think, in order for anything like that to be decided.

      In the unlikely event this company wins and their patent remains valid, the most likely outcome is

  • SmashMyPS3 (Score:2, Funny)

    by norminator ( 784674 )
    This could be good business for the Smash My PS3 [smashmyps3.com] folks.
  • I wouldn't be surprised if Sony took out contracts on these clowns, and made them sleep with the fishes.
  • The Cell was developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba. I don't know if IBM or Toshiba are selling any yet, but it doesn't make sense to sue only Sony. Well, unless this is a bullshit lawsuit and this company is hoping for an extremely fat settlement check.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rbanffy ( 584143 )
      They will sue whoever stands to lose the most. Had IBM or Toshiba bet their future on Cell as Sony's videogame division did, they would also be defendants.

      This is a patent troll and Sony should to the public service to have this case dismissed (or fight an endless line of trolls) and then sue them out of existence.

  • Don't mess with IBM's IP Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dreamchaser ( 49529 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:09AM (#20057777) Homepage Journal
    IBM holds a lot of the IP that goes into the Cell. They have a very good legal department. This little company may just have bitten off more than they can chew.

    I can see the IBM lawyers now..."Hmmm, interesting. Yes it may be possible that you have something there on this one patent. Let's see..." ruffles through a huge stack of papers in front of him. "However, we've discovered that you're also in violation of these 127 patents of ours. Now, shall we deal?"

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by OA ( 65410 )
      I can see the IBM lawyers now..."Hmmm, interesting. Yes it may be possible that you have something there on this one patent. Let's see..." ruffles through a huge stack of papers in front of him. "However, we've discovered that you're also in violation of these 127 patents of ours. Now, shall we deal?"

      This only works if this company suing Sony has any business activities in this field. Even if they did, the company can stop it and Sony's claim for damage is small one.

      Then if this small company win, it is hug
      • Except that in this case the company suing isn't JUST a patent troll. They actually sell product. Wanna bet IBM can find a few patents they are violating in the thousands of thousands that have come out of Armonk?
    • Even for a small company, there seems to be little information available on this company - certainly no stock listing, press releases or technical information at all. I assume that they're either a tiny tech company, one that IBM could crush, or they're yet another company making a living by creating patents, with no plans to do anything other than suing people who infringe them. If that's the case, IBM would have to overturn the patent since there's no chance of cross-licencing.

      It's very interesting that t

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by darkmeridian ( 119044 )
      In its heyday, IBM had a reputation for being a tough patent troll. There is an apocryphal story where IBM blue suits go over to Sun and presents how a Sun product was infringing an IBM patent, and a license would cost only $x million. After the IBM presentation was over, the Sun engineers go up and rip apart the IBM claim charts, and showed that the patents were not infringed.

      The blue suits stand up and say, "Well, we can go back to our vault and find another patent."

      Sun took out a license.

      Moral of the Sto

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by oGMo ( 379 )

      I can see the IBM lawyers now..."Hmmm, interesting. Yes it may be possible that you have something there on this one patent. Let's see..." ruffles through a huge stack of papers in front of him. "However, we've discovered that you're also in violation of these 127 patents of ours. Now, shall we deal?"

      Unfortunately the defensive patent portfolio only works if you're not being sued by a patent-holding firm. If they're not actually doing anything but litigating, chances are they're not violating any patent

  • California + Tokyo = Texas? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:10AM (#20057787) Homepage
    What I find a bit odd and perhaps suspicious about this whole thing is the fact that this case is being filed not where this company seems to be located, and not where any Sony offices are located but in TEXAS. Why isn't this being adjudicated in LA or San Diego?

    What do they think the bumpkins in Tyler might gain them?

    It also seems bizarre that they are bringing suit only now. This product has been on sale to the general public for quite awhile. This means that it has been available to developers for ages. Why didn't this get nipped in the bud while the units were still game studio prototypes rather than waiting until Sony made and shipped a million of them?
    • Apparently there is a particular federal judge in Texas who has a history of being very, very friendly to the plaintiffs in patent cases, so lots of patent troll suits get filed there. I can't remember the guy's name, but I read an article about it not long ago. Basically, his particular court has become the Mecca for bullshit patent claims.

    • Re:California + Tokyo = Texas? (Score:4, Informative)

      by catbutt ( 469582 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:20AM (#20057949)
      Well it's usually nearby Marshall Texas that patent cases are filed in. They have very patent friendly (and expedient) courts there. http://www.overlawyered.com/2005/01/marshall_texas _patent_central.html [overlawyered.com]
    • Ah, he wonders of the US legal system. When a case is filed, the plaintiff choses where to file. They obviously want to file where they will be most likely to win. I believe that the Texas courts are especially friendly to plaintiffs in this type of case. I don't have any actual links or facts to back this up, but I recall reading or hearing this before.
    • "What do they think the bumpkins in Tyler might gain them?"

      To quote the movie 'Sweet Home Alabama', "Honey, just cuz I talk slow doesn't mean I'm stupid."

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mr_death ( 106532 )
      Tyler is a famous federal district where patent holders get better results, on average, at trial.

      Why filing here isn't considered "forum shopping" isn't clear, but then again, I don't live in the same universe as lawyers do.
    • The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is well known in patent and IP litigation. It's frequently called the "second rocket docket" (the 4th District, in Virginia, being the original one) because of its rules for discovery, and very firm deadlines during trials. They also have a jury pool that's pretty conservative, arguably biased towards rightsholders, and judges that are receptive towards patent plaintiffs (certainly moreso than the average jury pool in the 9th District, which includes California).

      However some people have speculated that since rolling out the red carpet for patent cases, that they're beginning to become overwhelmed:
      http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=110354972899 8 [law.com]

    • First off, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc is a Delaware company by its incorporation. I would be interested in knowing Parallel Processing Corporation's incorporation, which could be Texas. It could be a move for a 'dumber' jury, but is more likely a move for an objective vs. a subjective jury.

      PPC (I love that name) could be referring to the methodology that IBM is using with the cell processor and since the PS3 is the first prevalent cell processor-based product, PPC might have a better case once

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by alexhs ( 877055 )
      I also found odd that that "Parallel Processing Corp." is nowhere to be found on the web (except related to this lawsuit). I did some research in this other post [slashdot.org].

  • Concept (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jshriverWVU ( 810740 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:12AM (#20057821)
    After reading the patent the one thing that popped in my mind that is "similar" to the Cell concept is the idea of having 1 master node CPU to help direct the remaining CPU's.

    While most dual/quad systems, the program or OS itself takes care the threading. With Cell and apparently this patent the master CPU helps take care of that. Still not a very patent. As the concept of a master node and slaves nodes for parallel processing has been around for decades. Just those tend to be 1 computer acting as a master with other slave "computer" nodes. Just in this patents case they're replacing "computer" with "CPU"

    Personally I hope Sony wins.

  • hmmm. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by apodyopsis ( 1048476 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:13AM (#20057833)
    from TFA "Parallel Processing said that Sony's alleged actions have caused "irreparable harm and monetary damage" to the company.".

    Oh, Really?

    Did they mean to say "Parallel Processing said that Sony's alleged actions have caused an opportunity to turn a fairly wide ranging patent that is useless on its own into some solid income via legal means.".

    So they waited to see if the console was selling then hit them with a law suit so Sony would be more inclined to settle quick?

    I am getting quite sick of IP trolls and patents that are so broadly phrased that they cover anything from toothpaste to nuclear physics. (disclaimer, I have not read the patent yet - but I am assuming that Sony carried out patent searches before building the Cell). And on that subject - why is the suite against Sony in particular not against the other members of the consortium that developed the Cell.

    I hope Sony sees them in court instead of folding.

  • Well let's pick it apart. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:14AM (#20057839)
    1 - "a plurality of multi-access memory modules;"

    The PS3 does apparently use 4 RAM chips, but they don't appear to be multi-access. Elpida makes them, and I couldn't find ANY of their offerings that were 'multi-access'.

    2 - "2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the number of processors is equal to the number of multi-access memory modules."

    Ouch, pretty sure there's 7 cores to that Cell processor, and NOT 7 RAM chips. (There's 4.)

    6 - "including a plurality of multi-access memory modules,"

    Too bad, guys, you lost your lawsuit before you started. The others are all based on 1 or 6, and losing both of those kills the whole thing for sure.

    • Re:Well let's pick it apart. (Score:4, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:28AM (#20058073) Journal

      The PS3 does apparently use 4 RAM chips, but they don't appear to be multi-access. Elpida makes them, and I couldn't find ANY of their offerings that were 'multi-access'.
      This is not about the PS3, it's about the Cell found in the PS3. The local memory of each SPU is multi-access; it can be accessed by the SPU itself and the DMA engines responsible for SPU to SPU transfer and SPU to or from main memory transfer.

      Ouch, pretty sure there's 7 cores to that Cell processor, and NOT 7 RAM chips. (There's 4.)
      Each SPU has 256KB of local memory. The number of SPUs is equal to the number of SPU-local memory modules.

      The claims you have listed all apply to the Cell. I haven't read the patent, so I don't know about the others.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Aladrin ( 926209 )
        There's 1 more piece of interest, then.

        "each of said processors further including local memory, whereby one or more of said processors processes data in its local memory before, after, and during a phase of processing;"

        Yes, further including the local memory, which means it is NOT the multi-access memory they are stating.
  • It describes a high-speed computer that breaks down a program 'into smaller concurrent processes running in different parallel processors' and resynchronizes the program for faster processing times ..



    Anyone can see that the Cell processor does not infringe this claim. If the computer did the breaking down thingie, then the Cell processor wouldn't be such a pain to program.

  • I am no fan of Sony, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bullfish ( 858648 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:19AM (#20057927)
    I think we have to acknowledge once and for all that for too many companies the purpose of a patent is to hide in a blind and wait for someone who has brains to make a go of something similar enough and resources to sue rather than make a product of their own.

    It is sheer parasitism.
  • Lets just assume for one second that the patent is valid and rock solid. It seems quite silly to me that they are claiming irreparable harm. The design on the processor is pushing 6 years now and it's been in production over 2 years and it wasn't as if it was quietly dropped onto the market. These people have a responsibility to mitigate their damages.

    How the heck is being utterly unreasonable supposed to help their case? It's one thing to start kicking and screaming 2 years after a product has been rel

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jdgeorge ( 18767 )
      How the heck is being utterly unreasonable supposed to help their case?

      Fair question. If you think about it, they aren't going to alienate Sony by their irrational demands; they are already filing a lawsuit, which is enough to alienate just about anybody.

      It's much more desirable to negotiate down from "give me the moon, and throw yourself on your own sword" to some reasonable compensation than to attempt a more rational-sounding "pay me $5 million, and ten cents per unit henceforth" approach which would get
      • Fair question. If you think about it, they aren't going to alienate Sony by their irrational demands; they are already filing a lawsuit, which is enough to alienate just about anybody.

        Lawsuits happen most businesses accept this fact and move on, simply getting sued is not something that most businesses take personally. Suing for unreasonable demands and publicizing the suit likely will.

        It's much more desirable to negotiate down from "give me the moon, and throw yourself on your own sword" to some reasonabl
  • On the contrary. If they win their lawsuit, then Sony will have done irreparable monetary benefit to the company ;)
  • It's not perfect but maybe IPM could be sued for copyright infringement...

    International Parallel Machines Inc. v. International Business Machines Co.

    Probably not illegal, but it sure is fishy.
  • Recall that the claims define the patented invention. Always start reading at the claims, then look to the specification to determine what the claims mean (if necessary). Reading the abstract or specification gives little clue to what is actually patented.

    So, I read the claims.

    The only semi-unique thing there are the synchronization signals combined with standard MIMD architecture circa 1989. Yes, the transputer predates this patent and is likely to void it. There was a lot of other parallel 'puter

  • Just try it! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Brett Buck ( 811747 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @11:52AM (#20058461)
    They can have my PS3 when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands!
  • First off the Cell was created as a collaboration project between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba so Sony isn't the one that should be used. Second the Cell does not use shared memory at all. The Cell on the PS3 is split into 10 cores, two PPC cores(called the PPU) have 256MB of memory in the same way a multicore Intel or AMD system shares the total amount of between all of there cores. The Cell cores(called the SPE) each have there own 256kb memory to them selves. The reason the Cell processor is just a pain in the

  • I have a completely fair solution. (Score:3, Funny)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @12:14PM (#20058801) Homepage
    How about this: Let's just award them the full profits Sony's realized from the PS3 up through the date of the lawsuit.

    Every penny.

    I think this would be an eminently fair solution, and I'm confident Sony would accept it.
  • every infringing chip (and console) be 'impounded and destroyed'.

    Fine. But we're not helping you find either of the two we sold.

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