NVIDIA, Samsung Lay Down Arms, Settle All Patent Squabbles

As the song goes, let there be peace on Earth. Or at least in the mobile graphics market. Happily, that seems to be the case at least between NVIDIA and Samsung, who have finally decided to settle their differences outside of court. After more than a year of back and forth mudslinging and suits and countersuits, the two have agreed to a settlement that, among other things, involve a small amount of cross-licensing. Money might have been involved, too, but of course they're not going to say that.

September 2014, NVIDIA made what it called an unprecedented move by filing its first ever patent lawsuit against both Samsung and Qualcomm over a number of its technologies it claims have been infringed on in the two's mobile chips. Naturally, Samsung didn't take it sitting down and filed a false advertising lawsuit against the graphics chip maker plus a patent lawsuit of its own, claiming that it was NVIDIA that was, in fact, infringing on Samsung's patents.

Since then, the results of the multiple concurrent cases have been like a tennis match stuck on dueuce , which neither side really getting a clear advantage. For example, the ITC not only cleared Samsung of any patent infringement but also ruled that NVIDIA indeed infringed on Samsung's set. On the other hand, the latter was later overturned by a federal court jury, clearing NVIDIA of blame.

With no clear winner and end in sight, the two fortunately decided to cut their losses and settle things more amicably, thus ending all current patent litigations in the US. Part of that settlement involves the exchange of only a small number of patents. No broad cross-licensing agreements though, which means the two could potentially sue each other again in the future over some of those other patents.