Posted on 01/11/2011 12:05:29 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Costly marriage of convenience
Intel and Nvidia have announced a six-year cross licensing agreement that will cost Intel $1.5 billion over the next five years. Nvidia will receive the first payment on January 18 2011.
In return for such a generous dowry, Intel will receive access to Nvidia’s full range of patents, while Nvidia will retain use of Intel patents in accordance with its existing six-year agreement with Intel. Under the terms of the agreement, both companies will drop all outstanding legal disputes between them.
Intel general counsel Doug Melamed said that the agreement will put an end to legal disputes between the companies and “preserve patent peace”. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced that the agreement will signal the start of a new era for Nvidia, which probably means he won’t take any potshots at Intel in the future.
Although we all knew some sort of an agreement was in the making, the timing of the announcement will surely raise quite a few eyebrows. The past week has seen Nvidia’s stock jump from $15.5 to just over $20 thanks to the Green Goblin’s good showing at CES. Announcing this agreement just a couple of days after the CES dust settled can’t be a coincidence.
We told you Huang would make a good politician.
Perhaps not keeping up with AMD?
Not really - just an insurance policy for both as their lawyers will lay down their arms and/or combine their forces for any future legal fights with AMD, ATI, etc.
Intel graphics processors are bog-standard components - they are handy since they are integrated with motherboards and result in a cheap computer for the bargain hunters out there but the gamers and power users want the good stuff and that means Nvidia or ATI.
patent attorneys make pretty good dough.. and when ya have a herd of them, it can get kind of expensive after awhile keeping the herd fed.
They have to feed their kids.
Oh man, looks like it’s time to switch to CUDA cards for my OpenCL development.
I knew it! The price of Nvidia has been steadily increasing over the past few months, from 10 to 20, accelerating significantly the past week or two. Sounds like there was a bit of a leak. I wonder what the options action looked like.
Since NVDA is roughly $1B in sales, a $1.5 Bn licensing deal over 6 years is very significant in terms of their profitability, and because it’s with Intel, competitively against their main rival ATI who is now owned by AMD.
You would think Intel could have bought the rights for much less money....unless they were desperate....which they might be.
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