
GlobalFoundries sues TSMC, wants U.S. import ban on some products - callwaiting
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-globalfoundries-tsmc-lawsuit/globalfoundries-seeks-to-ban-u-s-import-of-tsmc-clients-products-idUSKCN1VH0E9
======
Gwypaas
This take on it from the AMD subreddit makes at least for me more sense than
the "evil patents" way of thinking. Though, nothing confirmed yet.

 _It seems strange at first, but the selection of patents and the timeline
lead me to think of a very particular plausible line of events that would
absolutely merit a lawsuit and also explain the delay to implementing said
lawsuit.

AMD, IIRC, has access to Global Foundries' patent portfolio - enabling them to
use those patents freely. Makes sense, they were once the same company and
have a very tight agreement in effect for at least a few more years. AMD goes
to TSMC for 28nm after GF's stumbles and takes GF's patents to TSMC to improve
their process tech for AMD's needs. All legit, all legal. TSMC does not have
permission to use those patents on non-AMD products, but does so anyway.

Fast forward a couple years and investigating TSMC's process as it applies to
shipping products by other vendors reveals patent infringements. Good-faith
efforts are made to stop the infringement, but TSMC either doesn't acknowledge
the infringement or simply claims compliance and then does nothing. Ergo, the
lawsuit we see today._

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cvqu5l/comment/ey6fje5](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cvqu5l/comment/ey6fje5)

~~~
baybal2
FinFET _is_ a TSMC's invention as well as immersion lithography, and yet it is
somebody else got the patent.

How is that fair? How does it "encourage progress?"

~~~
dmix
Real world innovation and who runs to the patent office first are often two
very different things.

Yet many, often very rational, people defend the process as necessary for
innovation.

Much like minimum wage laws there's a lot of sub-industries where it
legitimately helps (studies show fast food mega corps don't have lower
employment rates after small bumps) and many where it hurts the very same
people it claims to protect (unskilled youth and disabled people who just want
to work in the summer/after school/part time for cash strapped small
businesses for experience and pocket change, and don't benefit from a 'living
wage' or nothing arrangements). I'm a big proponent of having these laws be
specific to certain fields where it makes sense like biotech and not presented
as a panacea that's pigeonholed onto every industry and easily exploited by
companies who contribute little more than hiring good lawyers.

~~~
wbl
That's not how it works. You have to invent in order to get a patent. The
first ro file rule happens when two people independently invent the same
thing.

~~~
dmix
It might not be how parents work but it is how innovation works in most
industries, so what are we really rewarding here?

Being first to claim it doesn't mean you're the first to "invent" something
and are the only one who should be given the power who gets to turn it into a
real life thing and make it actually useful.

------
kryptiskt
So the reason they abandoned their 7nm process was because they were going to
make money patent trolling instead? Guess it doesn't require as much
investment as building fabs.

Actually producing stuff is just a liability for a patent troll, that leaves
them open for counterattacks.

~~~
perlgeek
I think it's more likely that they abandoned their 7nm process because they
couldn't figure it out, and then resorted to patent trolling to still make
some money, somehow.

------
throwaway2048
I have a feeling that eventually we are going to be facing basically a
completely paralyzed tech industry because of what basically amounts to a
patent singularity.

As more and more formerly innovating and profitable companies that invented
and patented key technologies either start to struggle, get bought out, or go
out of business, there will be more and more pressure to monetize their huge
patent warchests, (and competing companies are even more driven to build up
their own warchests as a result) we are going to see wave after wave of
massive industry wide patent lawsuits like this that are going to completely
disrupt things.

We absolutely need massive patent reform in the USA before things reach this
point and any incentive to bring new products to market is destroyed by the
tidal wave of patent suits that it is virtually guaranteed to attract.

This stuff has very extreme chilling effects, for instance a technology that
has almost limitless potential (forward error correction) receives very little
attention because of how crazy the patent situation surrounding it is.

~~~
ajsnigrutin
Since the technology moves on so fast, shortening the patent expiration to eg.
1year would solve most of the problems.

Companies get 1 year head start (which is a lot), and after 1 year, we all
benefit.

~~~
new299
If you're suggesting a 1 year patent period for all utility patents, you might
as well just get rid of patents. In the industry I work in (Biotech - DNA
sequencing) it takes maybe 5 years to mature an approach and get it to market.

Once your patent is published, there isn't much to stop others developing the
same method [1] (they just would run into trouble if they sold it
commercially). So at the same time that the patent owner is developing their
platform, a competitor can be developing theirs and launch at the same time or
nearly the same time as you.

Certain areas, like software patents, I'd possibly agree. I don't think
software/algorithm patents are a good idea for a number of reasons however...

[1] General consensus seems to be patents don't cover academic work. I've also
heard that they don't cover commercial research, and that in any case it's
hard to provide damages.
[http://softlib.rice.edu/ques.html#2](http://softlib.rice.edu/ques.html#2)

~~~
davidhyde
Patent validity should not be one size fits all like it currently is. It's
hard to imagine but the patent system was actually designed to encourage
growth, not slow it. The validity period should be part of the application
process and awarded based on things like time-to-market and the length of the
research effort involved. Pharma is an example of a long patent period and a
software patent like two finger zooming should be shorter (maybe five years).

~~~
baybal2
> It's hard to imagine but the patent system was actually designed to
> encourage growth, not slow it.

And that was done by people completely oblivious to how real world economics
work, and reinforced in that delusion by later generations of not much smarter
statesmen.

It is not humanly possible to imagine how economic growth and efficiency is
encouraged by intentional introduction of economic inefficiency through
imposition of artificial scarcity (which is what patents are, literally a
license on economic inefficiency)

~~~
xoa
It actually is quite humanly possible. The fundamental issue is that while
replication of information is effectively free, _generation_ of (valuable)
information most certainly is not. Which takes us right back into limited
resource allocation and value decision territory. And markets are the best
tool we've found so far for societies to use to perform generalized efficient
resource allocation towards societal goals. It's also often quite possible to
keep information secret for a significant time period, but efforts to do so
(and efforts in turn to gain that information) _are themselves_ examples of
the "economic inefficiency" you complain about. However, generalized efforts
to restrict information _require_ the cooperation of society overall and costs
to society in a way that real physical property does not.

"Intellectual Property" is one possible way to try to answer all these points,
a hack to try to couple market allocation to the information generation issue
while also recognizing that it's not real property and is funded by and for
the public. It offers a chance, not a certainty, to make money off an
investment on information generation through convincing other parts of society
to pay for it piecemeal during a limited pseudo-physical-property replication
stage. In exchange, it shouldn't be secret, shouldn't cover basic facts of the
world or certain other areas where additional generation incentives are
unnecessary, and should have limited times taking into account the ongoing and
ever increasing societal cost.

I think it's very foolish to mistake implementation issues with fundamental
ones and throw out the baby with the bath water unless you've got something
better to fund information generation equally effective. And I have yet to
hear any proposed scheme by total-anti-IP folks to take its place, merely
complaints about the current implementation. I think it'd be far more
productive to first direct efforts towards fixing mismatches in historical IP
in each of the 3 areas above vs modern times. On the secrecy issue for
example, encrypted source code escrow should be a requirement for having
copyright protection for everything that isn't open or available source
already, and have-your-cake-and-eat-it Trade Secret laws should be eliminated.
Patent protection for mathematics (all software patents) should be completely
eliminated, copyright is more then enough already for software and better
aligns incentives. And new, better ways to reflect ongoing and increasing
societal costs, and the divergence in areas of generation, should be added
rather than mere fixed times. Ongoing yearly renewal beyond an initial short
period at non-linearly increasing cost (either fixed or an increasing
percentage of revenue) would be one possible approach.

But all this seems far more useful than anything else I've seen. Total command
and control at all levels of the economic stack hasn't proved any more
effective for information generation than it has anywhere else in economics.
IP has overall worked fairly effective, and it seems to me that the problems
it has caused are more down to warts and rust that could be fixed.

~~~
baybal2
> The fundamental issue is that while replication of information is
> effectively free, generation of (valuable) information most certainly is
> not.

This is a complete delusion. This is what about Goebbels said, "the bigger the
lie, the easier it is to believe in."

People are so indoctrinated in that way of thinking, that some times I have to
show this though experiment:

1\. Set up a machine that will "destroy" the IP value of something by copying
it.

2\. Make it do so a billion times, and watch if the company whose IP being
"infringed" goes bankrupt.

Now, will the company go bankrupt? Would they "run out" of their "IP
generation resource?" Definitely not, that would be _completely
inconsequential to them._ They nor lose nor gain anything. And then, all those
guys run to make up some smart "economic theory" to explain that, often
mutually contradicting, one sillier than another.

My idea is: if though process coming under IP generation is an unproductive
process, that does not make money, _why does the society goes nuts to
encourage and facilitate that?_ A basic understanding of economic principles
tells this is just like throwing money away.

See, US always brags of its informativeness. What was the last "big thing" an
American company ever came with? I will say it was transistor, and it was more
than 60 years ago, when no monstrous IP protection regime was in place.

It was not American companies who came up with: hoverboards, e ciggaretes,
selfie sticks, stick computer form factor, an untold number of innovations in
construction materials (MgO board is a Chinese invention, as well as FRPP
piping, modern foam concrete manufacturing machinery,) an untold number of
advances in materials science which allowed for $200 laptops being made from
carbon fibre (A US made analogue will cost you $2000 just for the casing)

Just how many new products are coming from China in virtual anonymity and
never given acknowledgement for their innovative nature are made without any
consideration for getting remunerated for their "IP"

Now whose system make more innovation US or China's?

I clearly see, the moment IP protection began verging on extreme, US began
stagnate in science and technology, and Chine went ahead.

~~~
xoa
> _This is a complete delusion._

Um, no. It's objective fact. Whether it's a video game or R&D on drugs or
semiconductors, it does in fact require the expending of limited resources.
Are you for real? This stuff doesn't pop into existence out of thin air.

> _This is what about Goebbels said, "the bigger the lie, the easier it is to
> believe in."_

Ah yes going the Nazi quote angle, always the sign of someone who is
definitely not a crackpot.

> _1\. Set up a machine that will "destroy" the IP value of something by
> copying it._

> _2\. Make it do so a billion times, and watch if the company whose IP being
> "infringed" goes bankrupt._

Did you, you know, actually READ anything I wrote, including the very first
sentence that you yourself quoted? Because what you just described is
information replication, which as I wrote in, again, that very sentence you
quoted, is effectively free. It does not cover the step 0 of _GENERATING_ that
information to be copied in the first place. That's the problem part, which IP
attempts to solve by hacking on synthetic limits on the unlimited part of the
equation to handle allocation to the limited part.

> _What was the last "big thing" an American company ever came with?_

Basically the entire semiconductor and software industry? Most modern
medicines? Much of modern genetic technology? Reusable rockets? Like, are you
for real?

> _and it was more than 60 years ago, when no monstrous IP protection regime
> was in place._

Uh, yeah when it comes to patents yes, IP is about the same as it was 60 years
ago, beyond the Republicans continually trying to cut the budget of the PTO.
That's part of the problem in fact.

I keep wondering if you're being sarcastic or engaging in satire here yet you
seem to be entirely serious, but it's utter nonsense stuff.

~~~
baybal2
> Um, no. It's objective fact. Whether it's a video game or R&D on drugs or
> semiconductors, it does in fact require the expending of limited resources.
> Are you for real? This stuff doesn't pop into existence out of thin air.

You can do a lot of normally valueless things for money, if somebody gives
them to you for that, whether by legal compulsion or own volition. Not denying
that. The question is whether giving money for that is a rational thing to do.

>It does not cover the step 0 of GENERATING that information to be copied in
the first place.

I put that example exactly to demonstrate that it does not influence whether
the person/business in question has his capacity "of GENERATING that
information" diminished.

No, that person or a business is 100% capable continuing doing so in the same
capacity.

The capacity "of GENERATING that information" gets diminished if it gets
regulatory limited though IP monopoly (I copyrighted this mathematic
formula/program, thus nobody else can use it in their mathematic
formulas/computer programs)

China for example has its own non-insignificant pharmaceutical industry making
original drugs, low profile semiconductor industry which nevertheless makes
own developments, and gigantic videogame companies all with close to none IP
enforcement.

------
TorKlingberg
I predict this will work itself out by TSMC paying some money to GF. The
amount will have some some vague connection to the validity of the case and
the mood of a judge.

~~~
sharpneli
GF licensed 14nm from Samsung. My hunch is that they’re trying to get their
hands on TSMC 7nm with cheap terms.

~~~
jpmattia
> _My hunch is that they’re trying to get their hands on TSMC 7nm with cheap
> terms._

I can't imagine a less diplomatic strategy for negotiating cheap licensing
terms. Good luck to them if that's the angle.

------
varshithr
GlobalFoundries(GF) was part of AMD and now AMD relies heavily on TSMC. If
this ban they are seeking goes through, does it affect AMD?

I think GF gave up on 7nm node a while ago, So maybe AMD is safe here.

~~~
makomk
I wouldn't be surprised if AMD kept some kind of patent license to
GlobalFoundries patents when they spun them off.

~~~
varshithr
Makes sense to do so.

------
jokoon
I think it's weird that most of the IP is developed and owned by US companies,
yet everything is being built overseas. Of course I'm talking about core
chips, like CPUs, SoC, RAM, flash memory, etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_industry#/media/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_industry#/media/File:Who_exported_Electronic_integrated_circuits_in_2016.svg)

I don't really understand why Taiwan has so many of those chip factories. I
can understand why developing countries like China have been assembling
electronic devices for so long, because the labor is cheap, but I don't think
that chip making follows the same rule. Those generally are high tech
factories, and I don't see why Taiwan has so many of them.

~~~
rrss
Because Taiwan recruited Morris Chang to help promote Taiwan's economy, and
Morris Chang decided to found the first foundry (i.e. fab-only) in the world.

Ever since, TSMC has been more-or-less leading innovation in semiconductor
manufacturing. Taiwan has a lot of high tech factories because it is a high
tech country with smart people.

------
vectorEQ
is it hip now to try and ban competitors from doing business :/ . grow up.
where are the days of trying to beat competitors with a better product?

~~~
ivoras
That time never actually existed. Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Facebook... and
practically every large business since Rockefeller and before, did everything
in their power, including regulatory capture, to hobble their competition.

It's the nature of doing business at scale.

~~~
decoyworker
Microsoft and Apple do not make good products?

~~~
AsyncAwait
That wasn't the claim. The claim is they tried to squash any competition
possibly making a better product. They've literally been convicted of that.

~~~
decoyworker
I was replying to- "where are the days of trying to beat competitors with a
better product?" and then Apple and Microsoft were listed in response as
offenders.

So they have inferior products than the competition?

~~~
AsyncAwait
> So they have inferior products than the competition?

In some cases yes, they did and had & tried to squash that competition. Less
so today, since there's little competition where they dominate, but MS for
example has a well documented history of doing just that[1].

I think you're conflating such behavior with not making any good products,
which is obviously not the case.

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

~~~
decoyworker
I know about the past- I still tend to believe that the better product wins.

You're pointing at Internet Explorer in 2001 as to why Windows is the #1
desktop operating system today? It was a better product- with or without this
shitty business practice 20 years ago.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> why Windows is the #1 desktop operating system today?

Because nobody's even attempting to compete in that space anymore. Many would
argue BeOS was better, or some UNIX variant was better etc. The point is MS
has sprung into its monopoly position via many at least questionable tactics &
then used that position to keep others at bay. That message has been received
& nowdays nobody on the desktop is even trying because going against per-
installed Windows on every PC you can commonly buy is hard to beat.

Intel had a worse product when AMD came out with 64bit CPUs and so they used
their position & partnerships to play dirty, Apple arguably does not play fair
against Spotify etc.

That does not mean the better product _never_ wins. Nobody said that. It's
just that it hardly wins every time, like it should.

------
baybal2
Well, what can I say.

This is how the "nuclear option" with regards to tech patents looks like.
That's what everybody talked about few years ago, when big tech companies were
making big patent defence pools.

An all out patent war in software looked scary enough for the industry, but
the damage from patent war in semi, and particularly in the fab process, has a
potential to surpass even that few times over.

Now US and German legal system has a choice: follow on its current ideology
into the dead end, or not to do so, and abandon their positions of
grandstanding

------
nonbel
I'm not complaining, but just wondering why there was zero interest in this
when I submitted it yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20801761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20801761)

~~~
dmix
This is such a common phenomenon with some very obvious answers...

~~~
nonbel
Well the general answer is that the HN algorithm didn't put it on the front
page (or at least not for long enough).

It is just that there is obviously interest on this site in this topic, yet it
failed to gain any traction. So there is room for improvement in the algo.

~~~
tomhoward
As dang has explained [1], there's a lot of randomness around what makes it to
the front page, but if it's a big, current story, it will be posted by enough
different people that it will make it there soon enough.

It sucks when you were first to submit it but miss out on the karma, of
course, but such is life.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20randomness%20front&s...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20randomness%20front&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

~~~
nonbel
"Randomness" doesn't explain anything. That is just the modern day version of
"the gods willed it".

~~~
tomhoward
Your original submission got one upvote. Which means that one person who
happened to be looking at the "New" page when it was submitted thought the
title was interesting enough to look at the article and then upvote it. Maybe
it because it was a low-traffic time of day, or people were focused on other
things, or ... who knows?

If, instead of one person, it happened to be be two or three, it would have
made it to the front page and you would've received all the karma from further
upvotes.

The thing that makes the difference between one upvote vs 2-3 is a whole lot
of unknowable factors that is reasonable to put down to "randomness".

That's how HackerNews has worked for all of the 10+ years I've been using it.

What alternative explanation do you propose?

Like I said, it sucks when you miss out on the karma, but if you strongly
believe it's a solid article you can resubmit it or email the mods and ask
them to put it in the second-chance pool, which they're always happy to do if
it's good content.

