Google accused of stealing patented AI technology in $1.67 billion case

Singular Computing has alleged Google of copying its AI tech

SUMMARY

• Tech company Singular Computing has sued Google for allegedly stealing its patented AI technology with its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).

• Singular claims that Google used the copied technologies as a foundation for AI features in its services like Search and Gmail.

• Google argues that it developed the chipsets independently and that Singular's technology was fundamentally different and prone to errors.

Google is no stranger to lawsuits, and there's a new one that has just made its long list. Singular Computing, a tech company based in Massachusetts, has sued Google in a federal court alleging that the search giant stole some of its patented AI technology on Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). The lawsuit claims that Google incorporated patented tech within these AI-based processors after meeting with Singular founder Joseph Bates on multiple occasions between 2010 and 2014. Bates reportedly shared some of his ideas with Google during the course of these meetings.

A counsel for Singular, Kerry Timbers, told jurors in a Boston court that these copied technologies were used as a foundation for AI features within Google services like Search, Gmail, Translate, and others. Jurors were also shown emails written by the current chief scientist at Google, Jeff Dean, talking about how Singular's tech could be "really well suited" for Google's products (via Reuters).

Meanwhile, Google lawyer Robert Van Nest argued that the people involved in the development of these chipsets never met with Singular's founder, saying the team came up with the designs on its own. Furthermore, Van Nest said Bates was "a disappointed inventor" and that Singular had already tried to approach fellow AI-focused companies like Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Singular's tech was capable of coming up with "incorrect" calculations due to the use of approximate math, Van Nest said, while adding that Google's chipsets were "fundamentally different" than those described in Singular's patents.

Interestingly, Google's pretrial documents claimed that Singular Computing sought up to $7 billion in damages for the alleged infringement. But as Reuters notes, Singular's lawyers were seeking only $1.67 billion during the trial.

Google's first TPU was announced back in 2016, and the company has been using them in its data centers since at least 2015. At the time, Google talked about how its first TPUs were helping provide more relevant search results, as well as improving Street View, among other things. Additional reporting by The Register highlights that Google's TPUs are currently in their fifth generation and being used to train AI models over its cloud infrastructure. The publication speculates that this trial could go on for at least a couple of weeks.

According to the plaintiff, the second and third versions of Google's TPUs that debuted in 2017 and 2018 infringe on Singular's patents. Separately, Google is also fighting it out with Singular Computing in a Washington appeals court, based on an appeal it filed from the USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office), per Reuters.

Another high-profile lawsuit against Google that's still fresh in our memory came from Epic Games, with a jury last month ruling in the game developer's favor. Google has since appealed that decision. Not long after, the company announced a $700 million settlement on a separate antitrust lawsuit, also related to the Play Store.

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