Judge Appears Wary of Constraining Nvidia in Patent Negotiations

A federal judge had tough questions for a patent owner that filed suit after purportedly being forced to negotiate the sale of its AI semiconductor technology through a tech membership group rather than directly with Nvidia Corp. and Microsoft Corp.

Xockets Inc. at a Thursday hearing sought to convince El Paso-based Judge Leon Schydlower of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas that San Francisco-based RPX Corp.'s ongoing role in cutting a broad deal for members, including Nvidia and Microsoft, to use Xockets’ patents “distorts the market” and should be blocked as a federal antitrust violation.

“The ...