MicroUnity Systems Engineering, a California based microprocessor company founded in 1988, is about to sue nearly all the world’s mobile manufacturing giants – Apple, Google, Nokia, AT&T, HTC etc. – adding up to 22 companies in total.
MicroUnity’s primary focus is on the Apple iPhone 3GS, Google Nexus One, Nokia N900, Motorola Droid etc. phones’ microprocessors, and filed multiple patent violation claims for the technologies implemented on each them. Here is the complete list of all of the U.S. Patents that MicroUnity alleges were infringed by the 22 companies in question.
| U.S. Patent No. | Description |
|---|---|
| 5,737,547 | System for Placing Entries of an Outstanding Processor Request into a Free Pool After the Request Is Accepted by a Corresponding Peripheral Device. |
| 5,742,840 | General Purpose, Multiple Precision Parallel Operation, Programmable Media Processor. |
| 5,794,061 | General Purpose, Multiple Precision Parallel Operation, Programmable Media Processor. |
| 6,006,318 C1 | General Purpose, Dynamic Partitioning, Programmable Media Processor. |
| 6,427,190 | Configurable Cache Allowing Cache-Type and Buffer-Type Access. |
| 6,725,356 C1 | System with Wide Operand Architecture, and Method. |
| 7,213,131 | Programmable Processor and Method for Partitioned Group Element Selection Operation. |
| 7,216,217 B2 | Programmable Processor with Group Floating-Point Operations. |
| 7,260,708 B2 | Programmable Processor and Method for Partitioned Group Shift. |
| 7,353,367 B2 | System and Software for Catenated Group Shift Instruction. |
| 7,509,366 B2 | Multiplier Array Processing System with Enhanced Utilization at Lower Precision. |
| 7,653,806 B2 | Method and Apparatus for Performing Improved Group Floating-Point Operations. |
| 7,660,972 B2 | Method and Software for Partitioned Floating-Point Multiply-Add Operation. |
| 7,660,973 B2 | System and Apparatus for Group Data Operations. |
MicroUnity is not a new player in the field of patent lawsuits. They have already had experiences with technology monsters like Intel and Dell in 2005, as well as AMD and Sony in 2007. Though all of those cases were settled without too many problems, what will happen here this time is surely something to be watched.