Another week, another patent troll suing Apple for alleged infringements of patents purchased for the sole purpose of filing lawsuits.
Sonrai Memory has filed similar infringement claims against a wide range of other tech companies, including Google, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, and Western Digital.
The lawsuits were spotted by Patently Apple.
The non-practicing entity (NPE) claims that Apple has infringed granted patents 6,874,014 titled “Chip multiprocessor with multiple operating systems,” and 6,724,241 titled “Variable charge pump circuit with dynamic load.” The patents were originally owned by Hewlett-Packard and a semiconductor company by the name of Atmel that closed their doors in 2016.
Of course, Sonrai Memory doesn’t actually make anything, they simply sue large companies with deep pockets. A simple Google search will show you a long list of their lawsuits against Texas Instruments, Samsung, Lenovo, AMD and now Apple. Yet as annoying as patent troll lawsuits are, Apple has to take them seriously as they do occasionally beat Apple in court like Optis Wireless did.
The company claims that Apple’s iPhones form model 6 through to 13 Pro Max, along with various Mac models dating back to 2018 infringe on their patents.
As is often the case with these claims, one of the patents is incredibly generic and should never have been granted.
An aspect of the present invention is to provide a multiprocessing system including multiple processors mounted on a single die. The multiple processors are connected to a memory storing multiple operating systems. Each of the multiple processors may execute one of the multiple operating systems.
Another aspect of the present invention is to provide a multiprocessing system including a plurality of processor groups mounted on a single die. The processor groups are connected to a memory storing multiple operating systems. Each of the processor groups may execute one of the multiple operating systems. The processor group may include one or more processors mounted on the die.
Certain embodiments of the present invention are capable of achieving certain advantages, including some or all of the following: mounting multiple processors on a single die reduces the cabling problem inherent in connecting multiple processors on separate dies in separate housings; mounting multiple processors on a single die reduces the latency required for communication among the processors and improves the efficiency of message passing, potentially enabling a whole new class of applications (e.g., data mining) to run on such a multiprocessing system; mounting multiple processors on a single die reduces chip-to-chip communication costs and leads to further power efficiency; and increased scalability for multiprocessing.
Such general patents are perfect for use by patent trolls as they describe an approach commonly used by a wide range of tech companies.
The other relates to a method of erasing data in flash memory, and Apple appears to have been included in the target list of companies because some of its products use a NAND chip made by SK Hynix, which is claimed to use HP’s patented tech.
While Apple can never afford to ignore these opportunistic cases, it is currently involved in a much more serious patent infringement battle with Ericsson, which has already seen the sale of iPhones banned in one country, with other import and sale bans likely to follow.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments