Trademarks and other agreements:
Like I said, from my point of view sticking a "Freesync" sticker on the monitor is more beneficial than not to. You seem to disagree with that. And that is fine. In your case, the "other agreements" would come into play. In my case, trademark agreements. Well, actually your case would also need the trademark agreements, even if the fees were laid as 0€. Even moreso, if AMD wants to maximize adoption, then 0€ would be the ideal sum in my case, as well. And I also pointed this out earlier, by the way.
"COULD":
Well yeah, the initial phrase was "... AMD can still mess up ..." and "... COULD initiate royalties or other costs ..." (latter capital emphasis even on the original). You're the one trying to make it sound like a definite future action... I'm just saying the have the option to do so.
390x for £1500:
Is there something stopping them from doing it? Certainly not at all probable, but far from impossible. If you had said such a thing, then yes indeed, I would have probably corrected that they "most likely won't", with reasons.
Freesync in monitor:
No. Just to make sure, I am still taking your word for it (combined with the logicality of such component not being stated in the articles). But you didn't actually show any evidence for it, though. There's just the lack of evidence for my stance, which therefore points to your explanation being more plausible. If tomorrow AMD came out and stated the opposite, I wouldn't say I'd be flabbergasted.
R&D:
Above I told how I took your word for it. But, when you said the "
as they have to pay these people anyway", I actually started to doubt the whole thing again.
I have no idea how AMD's R&D is structured, specifically. Only AMD knows. But I know how R&D works in general. That earlier statement implied you don't. And it wouldn't be such an easy task to explain.
There's the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_and_development for R&D in general, but that doesn't cover even nearly enough. I don't think there was any one particular article which taught me the basics of R&D, let alone its cost structure. I think the R&D cost issue requires a wider understanding on the basics of economics, in total. As such, I wouldn't waste time on reading singular articles.
If you necessarily want something to look at, then the chapter 2.3.1.2 of the pdf-link below gives one short example overview (no theory reading or explanation as such, though) for a cost formula of R&D:
http://www.springer.com/cda/content...7233239-c2.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-351708-p107940657
If you want more, then use search words like "product life cycle cost structure". Add "R&D" and "in computer industry", if you want more specific results.
Product:
Like I said, explaining the wider concept of "product" is something I'm not very fond of, either. But just for kicks I tried wikipedia (didn't expect to find anything useful in this case), and there's actually one fairly suitable page for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_(business)
Driver price:
Me personally? I can't. AMD can, they have the financial data. There are usually people who are specifically calculating how much input (money, material, man hours, etc.) the company is using on different areas of operation. Likewise there are people analyzing and estimating what would be the optimal input in the future, as well.
