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NXP flings sueball at Marvell over Xbox NFC chips
IP lawfare takes on new dimension – but for why?
NXP Semiconductors, the chipmaker which was once part of Philips, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Marvell Electronics, alleging that its patented wireless technology has been used in the Microsoft Xbox.
NXP claims that Marvell's Avastar chips infringe on four NXP patents, including three related to getting Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to play nicely together (US patent number 8,185,050, which uses packet arbitration to reduce the interference between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when they are communicating at the same time), and the similar patents 7,039,133 (“Coexistence device communication between a Bluetooth device and a wireless local area network device”) and 8,203,432 (“Method of reading a plurality of non-contact data carriers, including an anti-collision scheme”).
The other contended issue is around the chip manufacture process, relating mainly to US patent number 5,939,791, titled “Electronically conductive interconnects for integrated circuits”.
Website Law 360 (registration required) reports that NXP notified Marvell of the alleged infringement in the months leading up to the lawsuit and is now looking for “a determination of infringement, triple damages, attorneys' fees and a permanent injunction.”
Bluetooth guru and CTO of WiFore Consulting, Nick Hunn, told El Reg: “It's interesting that they're going for a chip company and not a product manufacturer.”
The case continues. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
