Earlier this week, Google appeared before a federal jury in Boston to counter a computer scientist’s assertions demanding a payment of $1.67 billion. The claim suggests that the tech giant violated patents supposedly encompassing processors essential for driving artificial intelligence technology in its products.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Singular Computing, a firm established by computer scientist Joseph Bates in Massachusetts, claimed that Google had copied his technology without proper licensing. According to Kerry Timbers, Singular Computing’s lawyer, Google allegedly replicated Bates’ innovations after numerous meetings between Bates and Google representatives from 2010 to 2014. Instead of licensing the technology, Google reportedly incorporated it into its Tensor Processing Units, which are integral to supporting AI features in products such as Google Search, Gmail, and Google Translate.
Internal emails presented in the case suggested that Google’s chief scientist, Jeff Dean, acknowledged the value of Bates’ ideas for their ongoing project at the said time. Timbers emphasized the importance of respecting others’ innovations and accused Google of not giving due credit.
“This case is about something we all learned a long time ago: respect for others, don’t take what doesn’t belong to you, and give credit where credit is due,” Timbers told jurors in his opening statement.
In response, Google’s lawyer, Robert Van Nest, argued that the employees who designed the chips had never met Bates and independently developed them. Van Nest portrayed Bates as a “disappointed inventor” who failed to persuade various companies, including Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc., and OpenAI to adopt his technology. He also asserted that Bates’ technology utilized approximate math, leading to potentially “incorrect” calculations.
“Google’s chips are fundamentally different, fundamentally different, than what is described in Singular’s patents,” Van Nest told the jury.
Before the trial, Google claimed that Singular had initially sought up to $7 billion in damages for patent infringement. During the trial, Timbers proposed a settlement of $1.67 billion.
Google introduced its processing units in 2016 for powering AI applications such as speech recognition and content generation. Singular alleged that versions 2 and 3 of these units, introduced in 2017 and 2018, violated its patent rights.
Simultaneously, a U.S. appeals court in Washington heard arguments on whether to invalidate Singular’s patents in a distinct case initiated by Google against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
