Apple侵害專利判賠

Opti於2002.6.獲得一項與Predictive snooping技術相關的專利，並於2007.1.控訴Apple侵犯了這項專利。

Apple的說法
Apple使用了相似技術，但辯稱，因先前技術和這項專利是顯而易見的，所以，Opti的專利應當被判無效。

德克薩斯州東區聯邦地方法院判決
法院沒有採信Apple的主張。反而裁定Apple蓄意侵犯了Opti這項專利，需賠償Opti US$19,009,728元的合理的專利權利金。

US6,405,29
1Title:Predictive snooping of cache memory for master-initiated accesses
Filing Date:2000.8.2.
Issue Date:2002.6.11.
Abstract:
When a PCI-bus controller receives a request from a PCI-bus master to transfer data with an address in secondary memory, the controller performs an initial inquire cycle and withholds TRDY# to the PCI-bus master until any write-back cycle completes. The controller then allows the burst access to take place between secondary memory and the PCI-bus master, and simultaneously and predictively, performs an inquire cycle of the L1 cache for the next cache line. In this manner, if the PCI burst continues past the cache line boundary, the new inquire cycle will already have taken place, or will already be in progress, thereby allowing the burst to proceed with, at most, a short delay. Predictive snoop cycles are not performed if the first transfer of a PCI-bus master access would be the last transfer before a cache line boundary is reached.