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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

#81

Post by erosenbe0 »

rrss wrote: post #54
gruez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

If first person has proof through dated notebooks, schematics, or internal documents they would likely be fine. However, second person may still have valid patent to assert elsewhere if there was never anything qualifying as public disclosure by first entity. Particularly under current doctrine.

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

#82

Post by zeusk »

sprayk wrote: post #57
notacoward wrote: post #44

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.

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

With proper citation, what's the issue with an article being quoted?

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

#83

Post by erosenbe0 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #74
rrss wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

IANAL. This is my current understanding. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct. Using it in a product counts as "public disclosure". If you've shipped it, that's a public disclosure for patent purposes. But it's more complicated than that, because you can file for a patent on something within one year after the first public disclosure. That also means that you can file within one year after someone else publicly disclos…

Just to be clear, in the US you must be an inventor to file. You can't take someone else's invention, once publicly disclosed, and then patent that within the one year period. But if two people have same invention the first to file usually has precedence.

Of course in practice there are thousands and thousands of trash patents but technically those are the rules.

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

#84

Post by Sparkyte »

TomVDB wrote: post #79
Sparkyte wrote: post #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…

The “NAL” statement wasn’t necessary: it was totally obvious the moment you wrote “definitely.” There’s a 99.999% certainty that this non-issue will NOT result in a lawsuit.

Gonna NAL anytime it comes to such subjects. ;)

Amazon has a full team of patent lawyers on retainer just to submit a patent.

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

#85

Post by Sparkyte »

pkilgore wrote: post #78
dmatech wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You never use StackOverflow or similar?

A lot of people use StackOverflow but people blindly copying StackOverflow is just as dumb. When I use it, I use it to understand the problem. I then write my own logic understanding the issues wrapped around the similar error. But some solutions are too simple to not be similar.

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

#86

Post by jcranmer »

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.

Engineers don't write the text of patents, patent attorneys do. And for the kind of boilerplate in a patent like "describe a modern processor", this text and images are actually quite likely to itself be heavily copy-pasted from previous applications.

Honestly, I would be more surprised if any engineer (intern or otherwise) at Intel ever noticed that the images came from an AMD presentation, let alone actively participated in copying the images from said source.

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

#87

Post by wtallis »

Sebb767 wrote: post #66
notacoward wrote: post #44

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 implies that nobody at Intel can describe a modern processor very well. This seems like a bit of a stretch, given that Intel had a lead in CPU power for years and is still quite close to AMD.

Designing a modern CPU architecture and describing one to a non-expert audience are very different skills.

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

#88

Post by notacoward »

jcranmer wrote: post #86
notacoward wrote: post #44

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.

Engineers don't write the text of patents, patent attorneys do. And for the kind of boilerplate in a patent like "describe a modern processor", this text and images are actually quite likely to itself be heavily copy-pasted from previous applications. Honestly, I would be more surprised if any engineer (intern or otherwise) at Intel ever noticed that the images came from an AMD presentation, let alone actively partic…

As the inventor on twenty-something patents, I think you're understating how much input engineers have. Yes, the bulk of the work is done by patent attorneys, mostly translating from pure technical jargon into that weird mixture of jargon and legalese that patents are written in ("...of the one or several..." and "...such as but not limited to..." and all that rot). However, for a patent of any complexity this often involves multiple rounds of back-and-forth with engineers to clarify and ensure correctness. In fact, I'd argue that any engineer who isn't involved in the writing process is failing to be sufficiently diligent or act in good faith when they sign the part about the patent accurately reflecting the invention.

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

#89

Post by r00fus »

ordu wrote: post #42
gruez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps known as Gray's Law:

“Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.”

In particular this interpretation [1] may be best applicable

"In other words: If you find someone acting so stupid that you can’t believe she’s doing it without the slightest chance of knowing that it’s stupid, then she might act out of malice."

[1] https://agiletrail.com/2011/12/20/hanlons-razor-comfort-in-t...

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

#90

Post by Qub3d »

pkilgore wrote: post #78
dmatech wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You never use StackOverflow or similar?

Obviously most devs will answer yes to this question. However, I don't think the implied conclusion (software devs copy each other, so the legal apparatus applied to software is okay doing so, too) is a valid one.

For one, this is hardware.

And second, even if this was software, that just reinforces the farce that is software patents -- another reason to add to the list of why patents on software shouldn't be a thing.

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