Infringing or not, its purely a 'legal thing. I would be more compelled by the fact that it killed some "cute" animal than by the fact that some people somewhere think it's "infringing".
From a technical point of view : Nvidia cards work, but their binary
blob nature make them a pain in the ass to use. And Nvidia has demonstrated that they aren't very good at making drivers for their own cards.. all the more reason to allow the community to help.