Do you know how aggressive the patent fighting between Xilinx andAltera is going?

[Weng Tianxiang]

Hi,
Do you know how aggressive the patent fighting between Xilinx and
Alters is going?

I give you some tastes here. But I have to make a statement first: I
don't have any internal personal relationships from neither companies
and all information about the patent fighting is derived from the
following patent I recently read:
Patent number: 7,394, 287, "Programmable Logic Device Having Complex
Logic Blocks with Improved Logic Cell Functionality" filed on May 21,
2007, by Altera.

Here is the patent website:
http://www.google.com/patents/about...inm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=

The patent contexts are all about Xilinx circuitry, but it was filed
by Altera so that O5 and O6 must be in their current status: O5 and O6
must share 5 inputs, eliminating the chance O6 can be figured with the
6th input, an easy point to make for Xilinx. All inventions in the
patent are trivial in its ideas, but important for Xilinx architecture
to further improve its efficiency.

What does it mean?

It means Altera has occupied a strategic high point to prevent Xilinx
from further improving its Virtex V cell structure without avoiding
its patent violations. The working price paid by Altera is minimum and
its benifits to Altera in market competition are huge and tremendous.
In another words, it is not exaggeratory to say that Altera hit a
Superlotto in the market competition.

I think both companies, #1 and #2, would establish, or have already
established, a division to specially research main opponent's
technology and file aggressive patents to avoid its improvements in
the future.

It is right and normal for fighters in battlefield to use minimum of
force to get superiority in the market.

That is why I would like to say the patent fighting between Xilinx and
Altera is so aggressive that anyone having read the patent 7394287
would smell the powder of the fighting hanging in the air without any
internal messages leaked from both companied.

Weng

 

[Jon]

Don't they all have cross licensing agreements in place?

Jon

 

[Weng Tianxiang]

Don't they all have cross licensing agreements in place?

Jon

Hi Jon,
I don't think so. FPGA industry is different from CPU industry where
Intel and AMD have known patent exchange agreements.

Xilinx and Altera fought 7 years in the 1990s' for the FPGA first
patent rights owned by Xilinx, (as you may know Xilinx is the
birthplace of FPGA industry), but finally Altera won, it means Altera
didn't give any compensation money to Xilinx which I heard from a
Xilinx field engineer.

Weng

 

[Andy]

Hi Jon,
I don't think so. FPGA industry is different from CPU industry where
Intel and AMD have known patent exchange agreements.

Xilinx and Altera fought 7 years in the 1990s' for the FPGA first
patent rights owned by Xilinx, (as you may know Xilinx is the
birthplace of FPGA industry), but finally Altera won, it means Altera
didn't give any compensation money to Xilinx which I heard from a
Xilinx field engineer.

Weng

I'd be very surprised if they had no cross-licensing at all. Competing
vendors often "trade" patent licenses. Xilinx may have something
Altera wants, and Altera may have something Xilinx wants, so they
trade licenses.

Andy

 

[Weng Tianxiang]

I'd be very surprised if they had no cross-licensing at all. Competing
vendors often "trade" patent licenses. Xilinx may have something
Altera wants, and Altera may have something Xilinx wants, so they
trade licenses.

Andy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi Andy,
No.

Can you point out any technique in current most advanced or most
obsolete FPGA products commonly shared by Xilinx and Altera? except
lookup table.

Weng

 

[Ed McGettigan]

Hi Jon,
I don't think so. FPGA industry is different from CPU industry where
Intel and AMD have known patent exchange agreements.

Xilinx and Altera fought 7 years in the 1990s' for the FPGA first
patent rights owned by Xilinx, (as you may know Xilinx is the
birthplace of FPGA industry), but finally Altera won, it means Altera
didn't give any compensation money to Xilinx which I heard from a
Xilinx field engineer.

Weng

Altera paid Xilinx $20M to settle the patent litigation back in July
2001. The agreement include a patent cross license.

http://www.altera.com/corporate/new...1/corporate_partners/pr-corp0718_release.html

Ed McGettigan

 

[Weng Tianxiang]

Altera paid Xilinx $20M to settle the patent litigation back in July
2001.  The agreement include a patent cross license.

http://www.altera.com/corporate/news_room/releases/releases_archive/2...

Ed McGettigan

Hi Ed,
Thank you for your correct and proper information about the case and
you information prevents any rumors from spreading further. I really
heared about the case from a Xilinx field engineer and he seemed to be
unknown of $20 million after my project was switched from Altera's
chips to Xilinx's and he told the story to boast the Xilinx technology
reputation.

Weng