Legally, they're perfectly entitled to do this. Personally I'd love to see some anti-patent activism from developers, leading to activism from gamers deciding to boycott nVidia for such immoral behavior. I guess that shows where I stand on the patent debate

I completely agree with you.

There is the old quote that a good way to get rid of bad laws is to have them vigorously enforced.

Totally derailing, as it was just in the news that Yahoo was threatened with a $250K/day fine if they didn't comply with secret US wiretap rules and they gave in because they didn't want to explain to stockholders, a vigorous enforcement would have been best. When the global financial conference call and legally mandated financial reports come out, answering "What is the line for $91M in NSA Fines? Ask the NSA or the President since we have a gag order," would have been amazing publicity. If they forced the government to actually enforce that side of the law it could have started some investigations 4 years earlier.

Probably the best way to encourage industry to force governmental change is to have the industries hit with legal penalties. When they start feeling financial pressure they'll bribe lobby the correct officials enough to make the changes.

Money, money must be funny...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/patent-trolls-how-some-say-theyre-hurting-us-economy/

Apple sued Samsung for making black cell phones with a glass finish not long ago. Some 100 million or so (probably more, I made that number up) people own and use the like phones. Following nVidia's logic and their explanation how it's really everybody else's fault and how they tried to negotiate but were finally forced to go to court (which I almost bought), Apple would be entitled to sue each and every of these 100 million cell phone owners.

Now, if Apple called you (owning a Samsung phone) and tried to negotiate with you that you pay them patent fees for that phone, what other reply would you give them but: "You know what, talk to Samsung about that". This is just what Samsung did in the nVidia case, which I deem perfectly right.

Also the statement "invented programmable shading" is surprising. I was under the impression Pixar developed that kind of thing (including a C-like shading language) in the 1980s, but hey.

Next move: claiming patent for silicon.

Graphics Mafia Strikes Back http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTc5ODA

According to the document, so far only fuses, ROM, and thermal shutdown thresholds are locked out. I don't know enough about the driver side to truly judge the impact of that but it seems "acceptable" to me. AFAIK I have never wanted to modify those.