A computer company recently sued Google, alleging that the company's AI processors infringed on two of its technology patents and claimed $7 billion, which was revised to $1.67 billion during the trial. The plaintiff in the lawsuit, Joseph Bates, a computer scientist at Singular Computing, told jurors that Google had copied his technology and used it for artificial intelligence development.
Between 2010 and 2014, Google and Bates discussed the prospect of a partnership, and Bates discussed how his AI-enabled chips could power AI processing, according to Kerry Timbers, Bates' lawyer. Bates accused Google of plagiarizing his innovations and using them in tensor processing units (TPUs). Timbers said that Google has developed TPU based on its technological achievements for use in various services, including Google Translate, Google Search, Gmail, and other services.
Timbers further added that Google launched its first generation of AI processors in 2016 that are capable of ad recommendations, content generation, and speech recognition. However, the 2nd and 3rd editions infringe on the patents of Singular Computing, and as such, the lawsuit should go to trial. Google has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to dismiss the lawsuit.