The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has filed a lawsuit against Amazon Web Services, alleging it infringed upon two of the university's patents.
MIT is alleging that AWS, Amazon.com's cloud-computing arm, infringed upon the patents by purchasing public unclonable function technology from Synopsys, a provider of semiconductor-design technology and intellectual property. PUF is a commonly used technology in cryptography that gives unique identifiers to devices such as computer chips.
In the lawsuit, filed Friday in a Massachusetts federal court, MIT said Amazon's use of Synopsys' products violates two patents for PUF technology based on research from MIT professor Srinivas Devadas and his co-authors.
MIT alleged that customers of Synopsys' static random-access-memory PUF technology infringe upon the patents. Synopsys wasn't named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The university also said that to the extent Amazon relies on PUF suppliers other than Amazon, those products also violate one of its patents.
MIT is requesting an award of monetary damages. Amazon and Synopsys didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The university in May filed a similar lawsuit against Microsoft. That case is continuing.