On July 26, Newport Beach, Calif.-based Parallel Processing filed a complaint against Sony that alleges the infringement of patent no. 5,056,000, according to a filing obtained by Next-Gen.

The patent, “Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory” was issued in October 1991. It describes a high-speed computer that breaks down a program “into smaller concurrent processes running in different parallel processors” and resynchronizes the program for faster processing times.

[...]

The plaintiff seeks damages, reimbursement of legal fees, interest and “the impounding and destruction of all Defendant’s products that infringe the ‘000 Patent.”

Source: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6616&Itemid=2

This is pretty ridiculous. Sony would settle with the Firm before they allowed them to impound and destroy all Cell-related products.

this firm is stupid... its going against Sony, IBM, and Toshiba...

Without knowing much of the particulars, most of these don't even go to court. They're settled quickly for modest fees or they're simply dismessed outright. I'd expect the same, but we'll see.

Hopefully it's not patent squatting, but any company really needs to defend it if they want to keep it.

Also, hopefully it just fails.

Yeah, it's patent squatting.

I know it's a stupid thing, but it sucks for Sony to give a little company some millions to STFU... if I was the person in charge at Sony, I would fight in the court.

actually this should go to court lmfao, the way the patent is.. its not even how the cell runs. lol Sony would win easily. SPEs are not processors.

plus the emotion engine runs more like the patent describes. lol should all 130m PS2s be destroys as well as the PSPs? 

 the xenos in the 360 runs more like the patent then the CELL lol.

I thought the SPE's were 128-bit RISC processors

 no their closer to a core then a processor, think about a core/processor hybrid. 

Sony can just buy the company for all I care :P

With the crap they got into with Immersion and what that brought them, they are probably treading a little more softly this time and if this turn out to be serious, I bet they'll pay (though won't impound and destroy all their machines.