After losing to Apple in several legal battles over patent breaches, Samsung Electronics won on Friday against chip maker Nvidia before the U.S. International Trade Commission. According to a decision by Judge Thomas Pender, the South Korean tech giant did not infringe two Nvidia patents.
Reuters reports that Pender found that Samsung infringed a third patent, but the patent was not valid since it was not a new invention. Nvidia complained in September 2014 to the ITC that Samsung and Qualcomm breached its three patents that Samsung used for its Exynos processors and Qualcomm for its Snapdragon processors.
It sought to prevent the import into the U.S. of several Samsung devices using the Exynos processors. CNET reports that the Samsung gadgets with the Exynos processors are the Galaxy Note Edge, Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S5. But the South Korean giant uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors for its high-end devices such as the Note 4.
The Nvidia lawsuit also cited Qualcomm's Adreno graphics, ARM Holdings' Mali technology and Imagination's PowerVR graphics architecture as having breached its graphics chip patent. However, California-based Nvidia could not push for an import ban on Qualcomm because the chipmaker is based in San Diego.
Besides complaining to the ITC, Nvidia also filed a lawsuit against the two companies in a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. Samsung, in turn, filed in November a countersuit in a federal court in Virginia, claiming it was Nvidia that breached its patent.
Nvidia said that the full commission would issue a final decision in February, and it is confident it would reverse Pender's decision.