Google Hits with $1.67 Billion Patent Infringement Lawsuit for AI Processor Technology

Alphabet's tech giant, Google, faced a federal jury in Boston on Tuesday, contending with accusations from computer scientist Joseph Bates and his company, Singular Computing. Bates claims that Google should compensate his company $1.67 billion for allegedly infringing on patents related to processors powering artificial intelligence (AI) technology in Google products.

Kerry Timbers, representing Singular Computing, argued that Google unlawfully copied Bates' innovations after multiple meetings between the parties. According to Timbers, Bates shared his groundbreaking computer-processing ideas with Google from 2010 to 2014, only to find out later that Google had incorporated his patented technology into its Tensor Processing Units, crucial for AI features in services like Google Search, Gmail, and Google Translate.

Internal emails presented during the trial revealed Google's chief scientist, Jeff Dean, acknowledging the suitability of Bates' ideas for their development. Another employee even admitted being "corrupted by Joe's ideas." Timbers emphasized the case's core principle of respecting others' intellectual property and giving credit where it is due.

However, Google's lawyer, Robert Van Nest, countered the claims, stating that the employees who designed Google's chips never met Bates and developed them independently. Van Nest painted Bates as a "disappointed inventor" with technology that failed to persuade other major companies, including Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc., and OpenAI (the creator of ChatGPT).

Van Nest also argued that Bates' technology used approximate math, leading to potentially "incorrect" calculations, while Google's chips were fundamentally different from what was described in Singular's patents.

Before the trial, Google claimed Singular had sought up to $7 billion in damages. During the proceedings, Timbers revised the demand to $1.67 billion. Google introduced its processing units in 2016, playing a vital role in AI functions such as speech recognition and ad recommendation. Singular alleges that versions 2 and 3 of the units, introduced in 2017 and 2018, violate its patent rights.

In a separate case, a U.S. appeals court in Washington heard arguments about whether to invalidate Singular's patents, a matter that Google appealed from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The courtroom drama continues as the two tech titans clash over the future of AI innovation.