NVIDIA Violated Rambus Patents on GPU Memory Controllers

if rambus actually made this product and used it, then what is the problem, it is okay to just take someone else's idea and use it, and make money from it.

i thought in order to get a patent you had to have a working version?

To get a patent you just need to provide a 1 paragraph explanation of what the thing does and a very basic sketch of the object.

Where patents are bad is when they are for items that follow a logical conclusion to a series of events. Sure you should get the jump on others but not forever, a patent should only last 3-5 years then go open to the public. If it took you more then 3 years to go from paper to production you were not even trying.
 
A company doesn't spring into existence spontaneously. There are people running it, deciding what it should and shouldn't do. The people deciding what actions they're going to do under the company's name should have morals. If a thug shoots somebody and says "Blame the game, not the player." would you nod your head in agreement and say what he did was ok?

Your analogy holds up until we get to the point where you're comparing people to corporations. Corporations are not living, breathing human beings. They are corporations. The difference in conscience in morality (or, rather, a lack thereof) is the exact reason you cannot comare the two.

The people running the companies are obligated to their shareholders to do whatever makes the company the most money. Morality never comes into play - what you'd think would be morality is actually nothing more than a series of "cash vs PR" decisions. You can't have a company with both morals and shareholders at the same time - the two present a massive conflict of interests, of which the people running the company are required by law to side with the shareholders on.
 
You can't have a company with both morals and shareholders at the same time - the two present a massive conflict of interests, of which the people running the company are required by law to side with the shareholders on.

Yes there often is a conflict of interest, but what does this have to do with us not blaming a company for acting immorally?
 
Can they go after companies that use Nvidia's products? If so, why? How can the customer, say HP, be in violation of a patend on a part that Nvidia designed, manufactured, and sold to them?


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To get a patent you just need to provide a 1 paragraph explanation of what the thing does and a very basic sketch of the object.

Where patents are bad is when they are for items that follow a logical conclusion to a series of events. Sure you should get the jump on others but not forever, a patent should only last 3-5 years then go open to the public. If it took you more then 3 years to go from paper to production you were not even trying.

It takes more than a paragraph and a sketch. The crux of a patent is in the claims, a group of statements that define exactly what of the invention is claimed for protection. The written description requirement is not nearly the most important part of a patent.

Also, patents last 17 years from the date of issuance or 20 years from the date of filing, whichever is longer. Clearly inventors want to protect their product for longer than simply the time to reduce to practice, a patent is designed to give a reasonable competitive advantage. If, however, you are sued for infringing a patent that was issued to a person who has since never bothered to create or market the product, you may raise the defense of abandonment.

The patent system is a balancing act, to promote innovation and release of that info into the public domain, for temporary rights in the owner. Without patents, inventors would simply keep their inventions as a trade secret, and the public and scientific community would be much less likely to reap the benefit of the advancements.

I thought this was the one area a patent DIDN'T hold water.:confused:

Correct. An invention needs to show utility (some lawful purpose), novelty (not anticipated in the prior art) and non-obviousness (not considered a trivial modification of an existing invention by a PHOSITA - person having ordinary skill in the art).

/end rant.
 
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