AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by KennyBlanken » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #27

snarfy wrote: 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.

And first to file doesn't mean first to file with the USPTO.

If you have a great idea for air-conditioned socks, you file your initial notes/work with your patent attorney, and that is sufficient (general hand-waving about officer of the court and so on.)

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

#42

Post by ordu » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #27

snarfy wrote: 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.

> The net effect of this is that AMD lost their ability to patent their invention by not filing first.

It can explain Intel's move to file the patent, which seems stupid at a first glance.

Anti-Hanlon Razor: never attribute to a stupidity anything that was done by an intelligent entity.

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

#43

Post by dmatech » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

ledoge wrote: post #14

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

So they cited Ian's 2016 article (which contained the AMD diagrams), then basically rendered those same diagrams in black and white in the patent. Pretty lazy.

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

#44

Post by notacoward » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

jsnell wrote: post #34

Remember the advice of "How to read a patent in 60 seconds" [0]. In this case there are two very short independent claims (1 and 3), all the way at the last page. They both seem to just be talking of some specifics on cache coherency. [0] https://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a-patent...

While this might be true from a legal standpoint, even using a competitor's presentation for the description seems a bit lazy, and getting caught at it is quite embarrassing. It implies that nobody at Intel can describe a modern processor very well.

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

#45

Post by rahimiali » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #39

snovv_crash wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe data presented by the guy who was editor for Anandtech for how many years, that's on you.

To be fair not everyone knows who @IanCutress is. The profile description of "Consultant, Chief Analyst, Influencer." doesn't really indicate he's a subject matter expert.

It doesn’t matter who these people are. If you’ve seen patents before, you can cause from the screenshots how similar the diagrams are to the sources.

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

#46

Post by tyrfing » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #2

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.

The presentation was cited as prior art by Intel.

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

#47

Post by monocasa » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #28

ledoge wrote: post #14

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

Quoted post unavailable.

It's literally quotes from an article he wrote about Zen for Anandtech cribbed in the patent.

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

#48

Post by rob74 » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #22

rob74 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was thinking about that too - kudos to them if they pulled this off, but I hope they're not with the company anymore...

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

#49

Post by MauranKilom » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #44

jsnell wrote: post #34

Remember the advice of "How to read a patent in 60 seconds" [0]. In this case there are two very short independent claims (1 and 3), all the way at the last page. They both seem to just be talking of some specifics on cache coherency. [0] https://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a-patent...

While this might be true from a legal standpoint, even using a competitor's presentation for the description seems a bit lazy, and getting caught at it is quite embarrassing. It implies that nobody at Intel can describe a modern processor very well.

It's definitely lazy that they didn't create their own description, but how does it follow from this that they can't?

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

#50

Post by monocasa » Wed, Apr 06, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

icegreentea2 wrote: post #32

...I think the actual patent is on moving the cache snooping into the interconnect? I think all of the figures presented are part of Intel's claim that any processor that implements cache snooping in the interconnect are subject to this patent.

Sorta. Cache snooping has been part of the interconnect for years (it arguably is the interconnect), but this is about snooping cache line zeroing instructions without having to go out to memory as far as I understand it. So if a line is shared in two caches, it can be zeroed in both without getting the DRAM controller or even L3 involved.