Live data from Hacker News

AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

twitter.com

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#21

Well... AMD can just cite their presentation as prior art, and it will be struck down. If anything, Intel was foolish to waste money on bored lawyers.

Not how it works, actually. The system changed in 2013 and now whoever is first to file gets the patent, even if someone else can demonstrate prior art.

https://www.justia.com/intellectual-property/patents/first-t...

AMD should have filed their own patents before talking about it publicly - that's how the game is now played.

If you don't - it's now possible for someone else to file a patent on your own invention.

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#22
post #5

Well... AMD can just cite their presentation as prior art, and it will be struck down. If anything, Intel was foolish to waste money on bored lawyers.

That's the way it should work, at least. But I have a nagging feeling that Intel wouldn't have done this so brazenly if (with the correct amount of lawyers and friendly judges) it wouldn't have seen a chance of the patent being upheld. Then again, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", so, who knows?!

IDK about intel, but quiet a few companies in their sphere offer employees bonuses for patents.

It would not surprise me in the least if this was something some employee did to get a pay bump.

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#23
That's how the US patent system works now.

"The first inventor to file (FITF) provision of the America Invents Act transitions the U.S. to a first-inventor-to-file system from a first-to-invent system and became effective on March 16, 2013"

https://www.uspto.gov/patents/first-inventor-file-fitf-resou...

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#24
post #20

It seems to me the Intel patent is using the AMD designs as examples, not something that's actually patented.

The tweets only show illustrations, not the text of the patent. So that's pretty plausible.

It is not pretty plausible. It is fact. The claims are strictly about cache. It barely even mentions the architecture except when relevant.

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#25
post #21

Well... AMD can just cite their presentation as prior art, and it will be struck down. If anything, Intel was foolish to waste money on bored lawyers.

Not how it works, actually. The system changed in 2013 and now whoever is first to file gets the patent, even if someone else can demonstrate prior art. https://www.justia.com/intellectual-property/patents/first-t... AMD should have filed their own patents before talking about it publicly - that's how the game is now played. If you don't - it's now possible for someone else to file a patent on your own invention.

This is not true - prior art is still a test for striking down a patent in court, it is just not taken into account when two entities are competing to file the same patent at the same time.

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#26
These diagrams could practically describe any processor, they are not even x86 specific. The fact that the layout of the figures is similar is kind of suspicious but I would guess they just come from the same decades-old book (or patent). They do reuse these type of quasi-standard figures quite often in order to churn out patents faster and faster. You'll find the actual new content (probably minuscule) somewhere in the claims. The patent system is just that ridiculous.

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#27
post #23

That's how the US patent system works now. "The first inventor to file (FITF) provision of the America Invents Act transitions the U.S. to a first-inventor-to-file system from a first-to-invent system and became effective on March 16, 2013" https://www.uspto.gov/patents/first-inventor-file-fitf-resou...

To be clear, first-to-file just means that in the event that the patent is granted, it's awarded to the person who filed first instead of the "actual" inventor. However, the patent can still be invalidated for prior art. The net effect of this is that AMD lost their ability to patent their invention by not filing first.

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#29

These diagrams could practically describe any processor, they are not even x86 specific. The fact that the layout of the figures is similar is kind of suspicious but I would guess they just come from the same decades-old book (or patent). They do reuse these type of quasi-standard figures quite often in order to churn out patents faster and faster. You'll find the actual new content (probably minuscule) somewhere in…

The specific numbers also match, but I agree that the diagrams are fairly generic.

Re: AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

#30
post #14

Those slides aren't the only thing they copied: https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1511718827083669508

Quoted post unavailable.

Books are published in batches of 'n' characters called sentences. Really, Twitter is just another medium.
Post reply on HN