GlobalFoundries has just filed a patent lawsuit against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), one of its major rivals in the semiconductor business. The lawsuit was filed in both the US and Germany and accuses the Taiwanese company of infringing on several of its patents.
GlobalFoundries’ lawsuit targets 16 specific patents that it says TSMC had infringed upon. Of those 16 patents, the company appears to be seeking financial compensation for 13 of them.
Oddly enough, while the details of each patent infringement listed is specific and detailed, GlobalFoundries’ lawsuit doesn’t actually list down the products affected. However, it did name companies such as Apple, Qualcomm, Google, NVIDIA, Lenovo, and MediaTek as some of the brands using products that are affected by the patents.
On that note, GlobalFoundries is seeking an import ban to prevent several of the TSMC clients mentioned above from importing their affected products out to the US and Germany.
GlobalFoundries’ lawsuit against TSMC is something of a surprise. In the past, the company was often on the receiving end of a lawsuit. To date, TSMC has filed no less than 16 lawsuits of its own against the company, all of which allege patent infringement as well.
It’s easy to see why GlobalFoundries would want to try and pull TSMC back too. One of the latter’s biggest clients is the GPU brand NVIDIA. Specifically, the company manufactures its GeForce RTX series graphics cards using chips and technology provided by TSMC. You can read more about the lawsuit, which we’ve included in the source link at the end of this article.
(Source: Global News Wire, Reuters, Hot Hardware)
