TI Sued Over Patent Infringement in OMAP 3 and 4 Series

Texas Instruments (TI) is facing a patent infringement suit from Cradle IP, which claims that the company is violating three of its patents with its TMS320-series digital signal processors as well as its ARM-based AM389x Sitara and OMAP3 and 4 processors.

The patents in question are #6,647,450 (Multiprocessor computer systems with command FIFO buffer at each target device), #6,708,259 (Programmable wake up of memory transfer controllers in a memory transfer engine) and #6,874,049 (Semaphores with interrupt mechanism).

All three patents were held until November 9, 2011 by Cradle Technologies, which was spun off Cirrus Logic in 1998. Cradle IP is a subsidiary of Cradle Technologies that was apparently created to monetize Cradle Technology's patents. Cradle Technologies describes itself as a "leader in network video surveillance systems".

According to the suit, Cradle continued to develop multi-core hardware designs after it was separated from Cirrus Logic and even released chips, including the CT3600 multi-core DSP in 2005 and was earlier to market than TI and Freescale. The company also stated that it has tried to contact TI about the alleged patent violations as early as November 2008, but has been supposedly ignored.

As usual, the document asks for a court trial to confirm the infringement, as well as "compensatory damages, past and future, amounting to no less than reasonable royalties, prejudgment interest, and/or any other available damages based on any form of recoverable economic injury sustained by Cradle as a result of TI’s infringement including enhanced damages for TI’s willful infringement of the Patents-in-Suit."