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Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

arstechnica.com

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Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#51

Post by kakarot »

amalcon wrote: post #15

Years ago, I spoke with an attorney with a CS background. He had once worked on a case like this. Sharp guy. He didn't tell me the parties involved, and I didn't ask, though I assume he wouldn't speak openly about it while it was ongoing. I therefore don't know how it turned out. It was many years ago, so I might be remembering wrong. I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice (neither mine nor his). Basically, there…

One has to wonder why this approach hasn't been successful in litigation against game console emulator developers.

Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#54

Post by pcwalton »

blazespin wrote: post #28
amorphid wrote: post #26

Attorneys on both sides must be excited on some level about the potential number of billable hours it'd take to litigate a case like this. Reminds me of a something an entrepreneurship professor told me... If there's one lawyer in town, they drive a Chevrolet. If there are two lawyers in town, they both drive Cadillacs.

To be fair Intel has done a lot of work to make the x86 as great as possible. Patent lawsuits are awful. I'm not sure just copying someone's technology and emulating it without paying a license fee is all that great either. My guess is this is all just negotiation from Microsoft's point of view and they are just trying to get Intel to license the ability to emulate x86. Another possibility is this is a way to get Int…

Emulation is only an implementation of the ISA. The x86 ISA is hardly "as great as possible". In fact, it's downright crummy: x86-64 is as bloated as RISC architectures usually are without any of RISC's benefits. At best you can make the argument that x86 has done well in spite of the ISA, not because of it.

The silicon-level implementation is another matter entirely, of course--but emulation has nothing to do with that. In fact, that's the definition of emulation--using a completely different implementation to offer a compatible interface.

Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#55

Post by bryanlarsen »

mental_ wrote: post #50

If AMD can implement x86 in hardware, why can't Microsoft implement it in software?

Intel & AMD have a patent cross-licensing agreement. The x86-64 instruction set was designed and first implemented by AMD.

Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#56

Post by std_throwaway »

boulos wrote: post #52
mental_ wrote: post #50

If AMD can implement x86 in hardware, why can't Microsoft implement it in software?

AMD has a (non-transferable!) license to do so.

I wonder if this kept AMD alive during the hard times.

x86 isn't going away for the next 10 years or longer.

Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#57

Post by pgeorgi »

wyldfire wrote: post #32
nerpderp83 wrote: post #3

Well, since x86 is a monopoly ... Intel oughta go easy on this one.

Intel would argue (semi-sanely) that there's no monopoly on CPUs. You can make your own mips, arm, it even Risc-V CPUs. Also that they cross license x86 with competitors.

Were there any new licensees in the last 15 years?

Nvidia reportedly had issues getting the necessary paperwork: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver#History

Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#58

Post by my123 »

pgeorgi wrote: post #45
AstralStorm wrote: post #10

So they will ban all virtual machines which sometimes have to go for emulation, e.g. to handle XSAVE? Scorched earth policy will likely not be defensible under fair use law. Reverse engineering for compatibility has a few precedents.

Patents may be selectively enforced, there's no forfeiture as there is with trademarks. Intel had (and has) no issue with qemu or bochs emulating everything, as long as they were niche and/or promoting the Intel platform (and grudgingly accepting compatibles). However a move to rid Microsoft's platform from Intel altogether without compromising compatibility is something worth fighting for. I heard that ARM is rather…

Intel uses that for their x86 Android devices - and as far as I know, ARM did not sue.

Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#59

Post by rayiner »

This marks a distinct shift for Intel. Historically, Intel's IP approach has focused on trade secrets, because they had a huge advantage in manufacturing and implementation techniques that are not easily reverse-engineered. Patent-protecting x86 didn't make much sense during the long period where nobody could make a general-purpose CPU as fast as Intel running native code, much less while emulating x86. As Moore's law has run its course, Intel's lead on that front has been shrinking. Apple's A10 is shockingly close to matching Kaby Lake on performance within a similar power envelope. And Ryzen is within spitting distance of Broadwell at the high end. All on non-Intel foundry processes. That was unimaginable 10 years ago.

Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield

#60

Post by geon »

blazespin wrote: post #28
amorphid wrote: post #26

Attorneys on both sides must be excited on some level about the potential number of billable hours it'd take to litigate a case like this. Reminds me of a something an entrepreneurship professor told me... If there's one lawyer in town, they drive a Chevrolet. If there are two lawyers in town, they both drive Cadillacs.

To be fair Intel has done a lot of work to make the x86 as great as possible. Patent lawsuits are awful. I'm not sure just copying someone's technology and emulating it without paying a license fee is all that great either. My guess is this is all just negotiation from Microsoft's point of view and they are just trying to get Intel to license the ability to emulate x86. Another possibility is this is a way to get Int…

> Intel has done a lot of work

> copying someone's technology and emulating it without paying a license fee

You are contradicting yourself.

Intel built an instruction set for hardware. Emulating it on an ARM would completely negate the usefulness of it. There is no copying, since the emulator is built on software. The patents concern hardware design, not software.

The whole case should be laughable. It shouldn't even be thinkable to take something like this to court. But I'm sure some layers are going to make a lot of money.

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