Singular Computing sued Google, accusing the search engine of patent infringement. Singular asserts that it developed a new architecture for computers that allowed more efficient use of the explosive growth in the number of transistors in computer chips. It says that this architecture is particularly beneficial for running Artificial Intelligence programs. Singular says that Google needed such advances to operate its Translate, Photos, Search, Assistant, Cloud and Gmail services without having to drastically increase its computing footprint. Singular accuses Google’s TPUv2, v3 and v4 devices of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 10,754,616, which issued in August 2020, and 11,169,775, which issued in November 2021.
The complaint says that these programs generate tens of billions of dollars in ad revenue for Google, and that Google would need to build at least eight new TPU computer centers in the United States, at a cost of at least $1.5 billion per center, to provide the necessary computing power absent the use of Singular’s patented architecture.
This is not the first suit filed by Singular against Google. Singular filed a similar suit in 2019, asserting three earlier patents against the same Google devices. All of the patents in both suits claims priority to a provisional application filed in 2009. The first three patents survived an Alice challenge in the earlier case, which has been stayed through May 2022 pending inter partes review. Judge Saylor has the case.
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