Adeia, which spun out from Xperi in 2022, is best known for sitting on a fat pile of vaguely worded patents and shaking down anyone who dares to make something vaguely similar. It says AMD has violated ten patents relating to chip stacking and hybrid bonding. In other words, Adeia reckons AMD’s stacked cache design, one of the main reasons Ryzen X3D chips are gaming powerhouses, was its idea.

In a statement packed with the usual legal chest-thumping, Adeia chief executive Paul E Davis said: “We are confident that pursuing this litigation is the right course of action to protect Adeia’s inventions, as well as the interests of our shareholders and customers.”

He added that while the company remains open to a “fair and reasonable arrangement,” it’s perfectly happy to slug it out in court if necessary.

That last bit is the real point. Adeia’s business model depends on dragging firms into court until they cough up settlement cash. It has pulled the same stunt on everyone from Nvidia, settled in 2023, to Disney, which is still being sued over digital-media patents. Before rebranding, the same outfit took swipes at Samsung, Broadcom, Comcast, Netflix, and a stack of Canadian telcos.

Since Adeia doesn’t design or sell chips, it prefers to target end-product vendors like AMD rather than manufacturers such as TSMC, which built the silicon. Suing the foundry would be messier and less lucrative. Hitting the brand on the box makes the damages much bigger and turns the legal screws on both sides of the supply chain.

AMD must decide whether to fight or fold. To win, it would need to prove Adeia’s patents are invalid which is a slow, expensive slog even for a heavyweight chipmaker. The more likely outcome is a quiet settlement and a cheque that Adeia can wave at its shareholders as proof of “protecting intellectual property.”