All PS3's to be destroyed ...

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14886

Wow.

I can't see them winning - still, worth a shot for the fame.

I do find some of these patent issues a bit silly really - it seems like everything new that is invented/created has to go through a field of patent landmines.

Seems like everyone's been out to destroy Sony these days.

Sony are doing a good job of destroying themselves so don't need help from anyone else.

This kind of patent annoys me actually. Now if it was a truely mind blowing concept that was stolen fine... But this is about getting different processors to do parts of the same job. Not unlike having a maths co-processor or indeed a processor on a graphics card (with shared memory).

It's been done before in one form or another, this simply strikes me as a company trying to fleece a big company out of money.

Prediction for the outcome: Sony will give them a bucket of cash to shut up and go away. Which is probably all they wanted anyway.

It is.

Actually it is one of the most complex aspects of CPU (and other microprocessor design). In fact there have been chipsets developed (VLIW) specifically to move this functionality into software, making high performance processors dirt cheap (and since compilers are already super-complicated, no loss there).

Sure. But probably not before 1989.

Because we all know that large corporations should be allowed to simply steal other peoples inventions, without paying for it. Besides which the Cell is actually an IBM processor, so why on earth they're sueing Sony is a bit of a mystery.

So shouldn't this affect multi-core processors?

It actually applies to single core CPUs with multiple ALUs as well.

Good job I didnt buy one then and had a wii instead! *chuckle*

Dabz

My shoe size is 8 by the way! ;)

Surely things like the C64 shifting sound processing to another chip is doing just that?

Now I don't know the ins and outs of this and I won't pretend to but it sounds to me about splitting different processes onto different chips (or parts of a chip) seems like an old idea, which is my point about it not being a mind blowing concept.

I don't think it's that simple. I mean also that I don't fully understand the patent but if it was a simple as that then Sony wouldn't be the only company with this problem.

who got the patent for the JMP instruction ?

hehe

> I don't think it's that simple. I mean also that I don't fully understand the patent but if it was a simple as that then Sony wouldn't be the only company with this problem.

The short description of the patent in the article doesn't help, what it states is obvious - if the patent actually goes into details on how to accomplish the task then it might be worth something. A better question is if this company is going after Intel and AMD as well.

I got the patent for NOP. If your stuff is sitting there idle. You owe me buckets of money.

Well, I had to go for MOV, those application developers owe me if they used this instruction :P

imagine if you had the patent for ball games - lol

It's insane how many computer-game related patents already exist... Pretty much any game is guaranteed to violate *someone*'s patent.

Obvious things like health bars over a characters head? Patented. Using a mini-map in the corner of a screen? Patented. allowing for seperate user profiles? Patented.
(I don't remember the specifics, but read an article on the matter some time ago linking to those examples)

Many of the large companies have a ton of 'stupid' patents just for defensive purposes -- even if they violate someone's patent, they are bound to violate one or more of yours as well, so you're in a bit of a cold-war stalemate. It's the small independent developers without any patents that stand to lose the most in these circumstances.

I don't get it....The cell CPU has been known about for yonks and they only just pull this?

I dislike Sony but this blows of, "Hey, lets set a net out and see who wonders in!"

anyone patented wheel?

I think Atari have the patent on high score tables

I thought Amazons 'One-Click' patent was pretty odd, I mean, how can you patent one mouse click on a button while shopping?

http://cse.stanford.edu/class/cs201/projects-99-00/software-patents/amazon.html

I know it bypasses the check-out, but that's like patenting a car parking permit... Non registered drivers have to pay at the machine first, registered drivers just slot their card in at the barrier.... Whats the difference?

Some of them are just too surreal, and should be laughed out of the patent office.

Dabz

Yes. A couple of years ago, to point out how friviously patents are awarded.

I patentd upwind farts. So you better watch out! :O)

Even though i dislike Sony I'd hate to see that patent win, it shouldn't be enough to just grab a theory out of your arse and patent it...you should have to describe how you're going to do it.

Well, guess I'd better hold my ground on the Wii60 bit, and not look at Sony again, outside of the PSP, and the PS2. Seems like those are the only two consoles from Sony worth owning at this point...

Yeah, the patent is kinda stupid. I'm still planning on getting a PS3 when the better games comes out for it later on in the year.

Yeah, it seems like Sony to gaming hardware captures just as much heat as Rockstar has in gaming software. I mean, you know that Rockstar is sued over all sorts of popular franchises for Sony's consoles all the time, like San Andreas, and now Manhunt 2, and such. However, to see Sony themselves being sued over technology like this, well, the publicity is a little... "out of order" so to speak. I mean, Sony got over the suit and paid their dues on the rumble packs and force feedback, and the like, and now they have this to worry about. I'm wondering what else Sony's gonna face heat on next?

Years ago when people didn't have much time to sit around and think patent's were a great idea. These days when the world is dominated by intellectual pursuit patent's (in their current steel trap form) are a bit silly.

As someone else said, why not target IBM or Toshiba or any of the other companies that had a hand in designing the Cell?

Sony must have the deepest pockets.

Sony are more likely to settle out of court than IBM or Toshiba.
Anyway wasnt "ChipMem" shared memory for multiple processes? (As opposed to "FastMem" which onthe CPU used)

That includes me.

I'm happy I got a wii.

Well they were willing to settle a similar case for 6 times as much as Microsoft were. Now Microsoft want a refund.

I really don't think that this is going to help anywhere.

And lets face the truth, if they lose, sony is going down sooo far faster due to the massive amount of money they pay for each sold PS3 ;-)

Although, with their crap sales ... perhaps a little multi million fine could help ... :-)

chipmem could be accessed by custom processors using dma which had an overhead, fastram was cpu only and ran slightly faster.

Im sure this wont get anywhere, sony, intel, amd, ibm etc will probably put their heads and resources together over this blatant patent leech, as if they won it would give them fuel and funds to sue the others one by one.

It sounds to me as if this 'company' has merely been set up because someone aquired (purchased) someone elses old patent and wants to try and make money.