I am not in the graphics space but I am quite familiar with tech business practices.
I think the chance you would be sued is near 100%. If you released and showed any market traction at all, you would immediately become a threat to the duopoly; they surely remember the rise of 3Dfx. Don’t bother arguing the merits of the patents because it would be a business decision, not a technical one—this is the kind of thing that’s decided at the C-level and then justified (or cautioned against) by the company’s legal team, not the other way around. Patents are merely leverage to effect the defense of the business, and you can be sure they’ll be used.
I agree with you (and definitely a conversation worth having) but for the sake of this thread let’s pretend that legal action would only be taken when a patent was actually matched with what was put in the chip.
I’m sad you’re being downvoted because I would also have been interested in the discussion, but I think the unfortunate reality is it just doesn’t matter that much.
I appreciate voicing that you’d also be interested in that discussion. These days it feels to me as though patents and litigation are such a large battleground that they dwarf conversations like these, but underneath it all patents do still exist the way they used to and that seems to me like that still means that these discussions are important.
I think the chance you would be sued is near 100%. If you released and showed any market traction at all, you would immediately become a threat to the duopoly; they surely remember the rise of 3Dfx. Don’t bother arguing the merits of the patents because it would be a business decision, not a technical one—this is the kind of thing that’s decided at the C-level and then justified (or cautioned against) by the company’s legal team, not the other way around. Patents are merely leverage to effect the defense of the business, and you can be sure they’ll be used.