Google Faces $7 Billion Lawsuit Over Tensor Processing Unit Patent

Alphabet's Google is scheduled to appear before a federal jury in Boston on Tuesday in a trial over allegations that processors used to power artificial intelligence technology in major products infringe on a computer scientist's patents. Joseph Bates, a computer scientist from Massachusetts, created Singular Computing, which says Google copied and used his technology to power AI features in Google Search, Gmail, Google Translate, and other services.

Singular has claimed monetary damages of up to $7 billion

According to a Google court filing, Singular has claimed monetary damages of up to $7 billion (approximately Rs. 58,172 crores), surpassing US history's highest patent infringement award. Google representative Jose Castaneda described Singular's patents as "dubious" and stated that Google created its processors "independently over many years." 

Singular's 2019 complaint

A counsel for Singular declined to comment on the matter. The experiment is planned to last two or three weeks. According to Singular's 2019 complaint, Bates shared his computer-processing breakthroughs with Google from 2010 to 2014. Singular claimed that Google's Tensor Processing Units, which improve the tech giant's AI capabilities, mimic Bates' work and violate two patents. According to the lawsuit, Google's circuits feature an enhanced design identified by Bates, which allows for more processing power and has "revolutionised the way AI training and inference are accomplished."

Google introduced its processing units 2016 to fuel AI for speech recognition, content development, ad suggestion, and other tasks. Singular claimed that versions 2 and 3 of the units, released in 2017 and 2018, violated its patent rights. Google informed the court in December that its processors operate differently than Singular's patented technology and that the patents are invalid.

"Google engineers had mixed feelings about the technology, and the company ultimately rejected it, explicitly telling Dr. Bates that his idea was not right for the type of applications Google was developing," the company stated in a court filing. On Tuesday, a US appeals court in Washington will hear arguments on whether to invalidate Singular's patents in a separate case that Google appealed from the US Patent and Trademark Office.