

Imagination buys MIPS for $60M, 498 patents sold to consortium for $350M - protomyth
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/06/imagination-buys-chip-design-firm-mips-for-60m-498-patents-sold-to-industry-consortium-for-350m/

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rayiner
MIPS is a great example of the kind of tech company that wouldn't exist
without some sort of intellectual property protection. They're specialists in
chip design--they don't make any physical products. The whole value of their
business is their designs, which are protected by their patent portfolio.

In MIPS's case, intellectual property protection made it possible to compete
on designing CPU's rather than designing finished products for those CPU's to
go into. It allowed them to focus on chip design rather than fab design or
manufacturing. And it allowed them to accumulate something of value in the
company itself that could be sold later.

Would CPU's get designed without patents? Of course. But I don't think the
sort of beneficial division of labor you see with MIPS and ARM would be
possible without some sort of intellectual property protection. When you can't
easily transact in something, that forces you to try and move every operation
involving that thing under one roof. And it's not hard to make the case that
those kinds of monolithic companies are worse for competition than patent
litigation.

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aristidb
You can get those beneficial effects with trade secrets and NDAs, if _those_
are legally protected. All without a f*ing monopoly grant.

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rayiner
Trade secrets can't be transacted in and NDA's don't protect against third
parties. When you have hundreds of licensees, you can't bet the farm on all of
them never accidentally or intentionally disclosing. Nobody would ever buy
such a fragile property right.

The "monopoly" aspect isn't really relevant here. It's not like you
accidentally stumble onto a MIPS patent. If you're infringing it's because
you're copying the design.

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ynniv
*The "monopoly" aspect isn't really relevant here. It's not If you're infringing it's because you're copying the design.

Well that audacious. I'm will be less daring and say that with 500 patents,
you are most certainly wrong about some of them.

Last time I said this, you brought up a 60 year old RF parent, but I'll give
you another shot and say that I hav never seen a software patent worth
protecting.

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rayiner
The RF patent was an example of the kind of patent I worked with, not a
software patent specifically.

My example for a software patent would be the h.264 patent. That's not
something a practitioner of ordinary skill would find obvious.

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ChuckMcM
Interesting that imagination is pursuing the CPU + gpu one stop shop like
arm/Mali

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mtgx
Seeing how tightly they control their GPU drivers for Linux, future
Imagination "SoC's" probably won't be very compelling for Linux users.

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xradionut
Just wish I had more choices of small MIPS based boards and computers like I
do with ARM.

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dbloom
The vast majority of Wi-Fi routers are MIPS-based. They're inexpensive, widely
available, and have have a vibrant developer community. They are cost-
competitive with single-board ARM computers, especially when you consider that
they include enclosures and many network interfaces.

I wouldn't be surprised if far more people have SSH'd into their router's
shell than have bought Raspberry Pi's.

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xradionut
Any recommended statrting points? LinuxMips wiki is very informative, but not
very helpful...

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dbloom
Check out <http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start> . Odds are that your router is
probably supported.

