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AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent

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

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If it's published, it is prior art.

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

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah, to me it just implies they don't want to actually leak any confidential information about their architecture since those details aren't really relevant to the patent (which is about snooping cache line zeroing in a cleaner way), so they just described their competitors overall uarch. Stealing lines from an anandtech article is a line to far though IMO.

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

#53

Why would one ever do this as a requirement for patentability is that it doesn't exist as prior art?

Because they're not patenting the stuff in the figures.

This is the equivalent of plagiarizing the "related literature" section of a paper - lazy, in bad taste, but need not invalidate the actual contributions/claims made.

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

#54
post #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.

something I’ve wondered for a while:

Suppose someone invents something and uses it for their products, but never publishes anything about the invention, and then someone else (years later) independently develops the same thing and gets a patent that covers the first invention.

Is the first person now infringing the patent, or can the fact they were doing it first (even though there is no published info to serve as prior art) give some rights to keep using it?

(I understand any responses are not legal advice and I should ask a lawyer, etc, etc)

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

#55
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If it's published, it is prior art.

They are not trying to patent what's shown in the figures, those are just given as background information. A patent for a screwdriver will most certainly also describe screws, regardless of whether screws are prior art.

Patentability is solely a matter of the claims made at the end. Those claims will of course be interpreted in the context set out by the method description, but it is entirely normal for a patent to describe the state of the art before discussing a novel method (about which actual claims are then made).

(IANAL)

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

#57
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.

Ian Cutress (discussed elsewhere in these comments for also having his description of a CPU copied in the patent) suspects it's an intern[0]

[0] https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1511716678199132173

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

#58
Definitely a lawsuit is going to come of this. I'm not even talking the blatent copy of the presentation but the blatent patenting of memory on interposer. This is basically what AMD's 2016 patent encompases for much of Ryzen's design architecture especially with HBM.

Now I think where Intel might be in the right is that they will claim improvement on AMD's patent and design. But it will be a stretch considering they are using AMD's presentation. Which obviously in court it will incredibly hard for Intel to prove no wrong doing.

NAL but you have to check your patents before submitting them. Intel went full patent troll.

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

#59
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 a common tactic in patents in my experience. You're not going to sue yourself. So you describe your invention in the context in which a competitor would use it. Of course, this would typically be coupled with a disclosure to the examiner that the thing describing the context is in the prior art.
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