Apple and Graphics Properties Holdings are exchanging new civil suits as part of their ongoing legal battle, according to AppleInsider. Apple filed two patent infringement complaints against GPH earlier this month through Los Angeles lawfirm O'Melveny & Myers. The details of the allegations, though, have not been made public.
The company resulting from the liquidation of once-giant workstation developer Silicon Graphics, Graphics Properties Holdings, hoped to profit from the work of the smartphone and TV industries after it quietly filed an International Trade Commission dispute late this week against key companies. It alleges that Apple, HTC, LG, RIM, Samsung, Sony, and Sony Ericsson are violating three patents for video technology. The patents appear to cover obvious technology, including floating point math to render the image, parcel instruction processing, and even widescreen LCD displays.
Apple has quietly signaled a new emphasis on graphics by hiring an influential graphics chipset designer from AMD. The former CTO for the company's ATI graphics product group, Bob Drebin, has indicated on his LinkedIn profile that he is now a Senior Director for an unnamed group within Apple. What products he covers are unknown, though in addition to leading GPU engineering at ATI since 2000, he also spent significant time developing products at Silicon Graphics and, during a 2-year span at ArtX, helped create the "Flipper" GPU that formed the heart of the Nintendo GameCube.
Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), which is in bankruptcy protection, has agreed to sell its business to Rackable Systems Inc. for $25 million, unless it receives a higher bid from elsewhere. Rackable makes servers and data-center storage products and would take on certain liabilities and debts associated with SGI, the WSJ reported on Wednesday. The offering represents a 15 percent premium on SGI shares as of their closing on Tuesday.
