"Warf is asking the court to declare that Intel's Core 2 Duo product infringe its patents"
Poor Intel. I don't think I'd like to argue with a Klingon.
A band of boffins is suing Intel, claiming the chip giant pinched their patented technology and used it in the Core 2 Duo processor design without their say-so. The patent application was filed way back in 1996 and granted in 1998, long before the advent of the Core 2 Duo design. It details a "table-based data speculation …
This patent sounds like "we used historic data as a guide to future behaviour". REAL scientists call this using experimental results (including null ones) to form a hypothesis and it is so far from being novel that you ought to get your bollocks roasted for even *trying* to patent the idea.
I'm slow I guess.
Just figured out how Intel works.
1. See competitor with better chip (Opteron)
2. Steal tech from others to crush competitor.
3. Pay a tiny % of total intake to resolve #2
4. Hold huge percentage of market, with little or no real penalty (when looking at the overall big picture).
I'm not anti-capitalism, but it does appear that the game is played in a fashion that, to "win" is to become a monopoly.
Opteron (Barcelona) the better chip? so where is it?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7339
stealing techs from competitor. hmmm, the Core 2 Duo has long been using 128-bit internal data paths and Barcelona (as well as phenom) just adopted it. L3 cache? this is old intel server technology. and many more here:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/480
Ummm you are sort of right but WARF is from the University of Wisconsin. (This sort of hints WHERE they are at!) As they are a part of the STATE OF WISCONSIN, they are subject to the State of Wisconsin laws. Taking this to court in Texas would be like the UK taking someone to a court in France - won't happen.
Just buy them off, Intel. A year on, and Core2 is still demolishing the desktop market, and the core-derrived Xeons aren't doing too bad either. Don't let anything rain on your (For once, well-deserved) parade.
besides, if you have to stop selling Core2's, you may be forced into desktop Itanic.
....scary thought, isn't it?