US trade commission to probe Nvidia’s patent complaints against Samsung, Qualcom

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) yesterday voted to carry out a probe into Nvidia's patent complaints against Samsung and chipmaker Qualcomm, cnet reported.

The ITC would determine whether certain Samsung devices -- including the Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S5 -- should be banned from sale in the US over patent infringement as alleged by Nvidia.

"We are pleased with the ITC decision today to open an investigation and look forward to presenting our case on how Nvidia GPU patents are being used without a license," David Shannon, Nvidia executive vice president and chief administrative officer, said in a statement.

Nvidia, which is a strong player in graphics chips for PCs, last month filed lawsuits pertaining to seven of its patents with the ITC and US District Court in Delaware.

At the time, the Santa Clara-based company, said it asked the ITC to block shipments of several Samsung smartphones and tablets to the US and called on the district court to award damages for the alleged infringement.

The issue in question was whether chips made by Samsung and Qualcomm infringed Nvidia's graphics related patents.

The products involved included the Galaxy Note Edge and Note 4 smartphones, which Samsung unveiled Wednesday, as also the company's flagship Galaxy S5 and Galaxy S4 phones, Venture Beat reported.

The Note 3 was also figures in the products as also Samsung tablet computers, including the Galaxy Tab S, Tab 2 and Note Pro.

According to the graphics chip maker, the South Korean Electronics giant, which uses a number of Qualcomm mobile processors as also Samsung's own Exynos mobile processors, had violated Nvidia's GPU patents.

The ITC would decide whether to block imports of the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 3, and Galaxy S4 mobile phones; and the Galaxy Tab S, Galaxy Note Pro, and Galaxy Tab 2 computer tablets. The devices use the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, 400, 600, 800, 801, and 805 chipsets, and the Exynos mobile processors designed by Samsung itself.