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Scientists sue Intel over Core 2 Duo tech
- Thread starter Bleek
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Soldato
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Associate
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I find the use of Klingon in the comments to the article interesting. It appears to say "Foo! Your mum has a silky bonce" or words to that effect. Now this shows why Google is your friend, because until 5 minutes ago, I'd never have known any of that.
I guess having a name like "Warf" is unfortunate. But then I'm not sure their lawsuit is sound.
Not sure - if they can get IBM to settle out of court, they've probably got the warchest to go after Intel.
Patents are - after all - only worth what somebody puts in to protect them. If there is any grounds to the claim, they stand to get quite a lot back out of Intel.
But then, I suppose this wouldn't be the first time a huge corporation has not given a smaller company the credit it deserves for an invention/innovation.
Microsoft, anybody?
I fully expect Intel to put their hands up quietly and pay the scientists off.
The description is a bit vague, they could be referring to any dual core CPU...or even just branch prediction which is in earlier designs.
Probably because the bods at reghardware have no idea about the technicalities.
Legal-ese is difficult at the best of times, let alone when it relates to something as obscure and complicated as branch prediction, etc.
Tech companies do this all the time, filing vague patents in hope that someday something similar will crop up.
Happened with Hyperthreading too, some tin pot little company claim they have patent on it, yet intel licensed it from Digital back in 1998. Some claim intel stole Hyperthreading from AMD, but the AMD patent which describes a similar process was only filed in 1999, a year after intel had licensed the use of the technology from digital.
Rambus are another one, they failed to get rich with their RIMM technology, so now they just spend their days filing lawsuites against anyone who makes DDR, because DDR happens to share a few ideas that RIMMs use, even though DDR does it a very different way, Rambus's patent does appear to describe some aspects of DDR design.
Only way for tech companys to get anywhere is simply make a product, dont bother searching for a gazillion patents, just make it how you want it, and if your design happens to be similar to someone elses purely theoretical patent... So be it, get sued, settle out of court, and buy a license.
If enough people research a problem, its only natural that the same basic principals are going to be "invented" by different teams, at the same time.
It's amazing anything gets invented these days.
Happened with Hyperthreading too, some tin pot little company claim they have patent on it, yet intel licensed it from Digital back in 1998. Some claim intel stole Hyperthreading from AMD, but the AMD patent which describes a similar process was only filed in 1999, a year after intel had licensed the use of the technology from digital.
Rambus are another one, they failed to get rich with their RIMM technology, so now they just spend their days filing lawsuites against anyone who makes DDR, because DDR happens to share a few ideas that RIMMs use, even though DDR does it a very different way, Rambus's patent does appear to describe some aspects of DDR design.
Only way for tech companys to get anywhere is simply make a product, dont bother searching for a gazillion patents, just make it how you want it, and if your design happens to be similar to someone elses purely theoretical patent... So be it, get sued, settle out of court, and buy a license.
If enough people research a problem, its only natural that the same basic principals are going to be "invented" by different teams, at the same time.
It's amazing anything gets invented these days.
Soldato
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Actually that article in the OP is completely wrong, the University of Wisconsin demoed instruction level parallelism to Intel in '98, and offered them a license to use it, Intel declined. But according to the lawsuit their tech is in C2Ds.
Trouble with tech patents, is half the time the patent offices just dont understand whats going on. There must be at least half a dozen different patents granted that all describe the 'basic' principals of single chip multi tasking, hence why at least 3 companies have claimed intel used patented tech in Pentium IV. Yet intel actually licensed that tech from another patent holder in the late 90's.
This 'new' case isnt well described in the article but sounds like some kind of branch prediction, who knows, but its really nothing new. This kind of thing goes on every day in our modern world. They arnt interested in giving intel a bad name, and they certainly dont actually want to block sales of the most successfull computer processors in the world.
All they are after is a large sum of money to line their own pockets. If AMD was the worlds number one processor manufacturer with huge amounts of cash reserves, then they would be the target of all the lawsuits.
Dont get me wrong, I believe credit where credit is due, and inventors should get the appropriate reward. But it seems to me that there are some very generically written patents, which lawers will bend and twist, until they find a way to get money from the companies who are trying to push the boundery's of technology.
This 'new' case isnt well described in the article but sounds like some kind of branch prediction, who knows, but its really nothing new. This kind of thing goes on every day in our modern world. They arnt interested in giving intel a bad name, and they certainly dont actually want to block sales of the most successfull computer processors in the world.
All they are after is a large sum of money to line their own pockets. If AMD was the worlds number one processor manufacturer with huge amounts of cash reserves, then they would be the target of all the lawsuits.
Dont get me wrong, I believe credit where credit is due, and inventors should get the appropriate reward. But it seems to me that there are some very generically written patents, which lawers will bend and twist, until they find a way to get money from the companies who are trying to push the boundery's of technology.
I do believe that AMD have a certain agreement with Intel that allows 'sharing' (to a degree0 of each other's ideas - not quite as basic as that, but something that did not prevent the rise of Intel's 64-bit bolt-on instruction set.
A lot of time and effort goes into researching the merits of legal cases based on patent infringement, and I doubt that the lawsuit would have been filed if it didn't have at least some merit, simply due to the potentially astronomical cost.
However, in the end, the only people who will know what is actually right/wrong are Intel's and WARF's counsels/scientists.
Patents are written in two ways: generically and uber-specifically. The generic ones do not generally stand up in court from my experience with surface treatments; the uber-specific ones are generally water-tight and allow for action to be brought successfully against any company impinging upon them.
All of this, however, can be undone by some clever clogs publishing something in the general/scientific press about the technique(s), which makes it fair game.
I have no idea what the patent filed by the scientists constitutes (and would have no idea even if I read it), so I couldn't say whether or not the case should or shouldn't stand on its own merits.
A lot of time and effort goes into researching the merits of legal cases based on patent infringement, and I doubt that the lawsuit would have been filed if it didn't have at least some merit, simply due to the potentially astronomical cost.
However, in the end, the only people who will know what is actually right/wrong are Intel's and WARF's counsels/scientists.
Patents are written in two ways: generically and uber-specifically. The generic ones do not generally stand up in court from my experience with surface treatments; the uber-specific ones are generally water-tight and allow for action to be brought successfully against any company impinging upon them.
All of this, however, can be undone by some clever clogs publishing something in the general/scientific press about the technique(s), which makes it fair game.
I have no idea what the patent filed by the scientists constitutes (and would have no idea even if I read it), so I couldn't say whether or not the case should or shouldn't stand on its own merits.
