AMD sues Realtek and TCL Holdings for infringing graphics patents

by ddos ·

AMD and ATI Technologies ULC have filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (USITC), alleging that Realtek and TCL infringed five patents, sparking an investigation into the claims by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Among the patents listed by AMD, are mainly related to graphics technology, including texture decompression, unified shader method for graphics architecture, multi-threaded graphics processing system, thread synchronization method, and patents for asynchronous task dispatching processing units. AMD said that both Realtek and TCL Holdings have integrated solutions based on their intellectual property without prior licenses.

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AMD filed the lawsuit on May 5, 2022, seeking to obtain an exclusion order and to stop selling related products. The USITC will investigate the use of Realtek and TCL graphics systems, digital TVs, and related components in some products sold in the US market, and will announce the results of the investigation on July 1. If the lawsuit ultimately issues an exclusion order, sales of the affected products will cease.

This isn’t the first time AMD has done something similar. In 2017, AMD also triggered another US International Trade Commission patent infringement investigation, which included LG, Vizio, Mediatek, and Sigma Designs. Most of these companies reached settlements with AMD, but AMD eventually sued MediaTek for infringing a number of its patents.

If the US International Trade Commission finds that Realtek and TCL have infringed AMD’s patents, it can be expected that the two parties will try to reach a settlement and pay licensing fees for related technologies.