Google is facing a very expensive patent lawsuit

There are so many inventions around the world that it is inevitable that some might be quite similar to each other. A company by the name of Singular Computing seems to think that way about some of Google’s products and services. To that end, they have filed a $1.67 billion lawsuit against Google over alleged patent infringements.

The company is alleging that Google had stolen patents regarding AI technology. These patents were then used in some of Google’s products. They claim that Singular’s founder, Joseph Bates, had repeatedly met up with Google. Both parties were in discussions to use his ideas to help develop artificial intelligence. These ideas were then allegedly built into Google’s Tensor Processing Units.

Google has responded to the patent lawsuit and refuted the allegations. Robert Van Nest, one of the lawyers for Google, claims that the company’s employees who designed the Tensor chips had never met Bates. He also claims that they designed the chips separately from the other employees who did. Van Nest also told the jury that Google’s chips are “fundamentally different” from the description of Singular’s patents.

If these allegations can be proven, it is going to cost Google a pretty penny. Google recently settled another unrelated lawsuit regarding antitrust for $700 million, so if they were to lose this one, it would put them out at least $2 billion.