MIT Sues AWS Over Alleged Infringement of Cryptography Patents

what happened

Newsmetry API reports that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has sued Amazon Web Services in a Massachusetts federal court, accusing Amazon.com’s cloud-computing unit of infringing two patents. MIT says AWS used public unclonable function technology purchased from Synopsys, a supplier of semiconductor-design technology and intellectual property.

PUF is widely used in cryptography to create unique identifiers for devices including computer chips. In the complaint filed Friday, MIT said Synopsys products using static random-access-memory PUF technology infringe patents based on research by MIT professor Srinivas Devadas and his co-authors.

Synopsys was not named as a defendant. MIT also claims that products from other PUF suppliers, if used by Amazon, violate one of its patents. The university is seeking monetary damages. Amazon and Synopsys did not immediately respond to comment requests. In May, MIT brought a similar case against Microsoft; that litigation is continuing.

why it matters

The lawsuit adds legal uncertainty for Amazon and may be relevant to Microsoft, which faces a similar MIT case. The potential financial impact has not been determined.

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