"Any patents for x86 itself have surely expired. Why do you think they emphasized their follow-on technologies?" It's basically equivalent if there's no altern

"Any patents for x86 itself have surely expired. Why do you think they emphasized their follow-on technologies?" It's basically equivalent if there's no alternatives in microarchitectural details that achieve the same thing without violating a patent. There's a crazy amount of patents on that stuff. So, whoever builds it needs to sell enough to pay the lawyer fees on top of the catch up fees.