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> they are allowed to sell any clean-room designed x86 hardware Uuuuh, presumably the case was about patents, right? I don't see how cleanroom-ing is fine with

• murgindrag 6y ago
  That case was about patents, but I'm not sure patents are as central here. Right now, there is a patent minescape of mutually assured destruction between everyone. If anyone exercises their patent rights, no one can make anything modern, and the whole industry would come screeching to a halt. Oddly enough, integrated circuits have their own IP scheme. IP has copyright, patent right, trade secrets, trademarks, and mask works. You rarely learn about mask works, since they're so narrow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_layout_design_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_layout_desi... I think a lot of this would hinge on that corner of the law.
• deaddodo 6y ago
  Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/846/522/1687321/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/8... Summary: Cyrix (and subsequently, VIA) have an implied license to Intel's patents; allowing them to develop x86 hardware. How that differs from AMD: AMD and Intel have a full cross-license on technologies. This means, AMD can utilize Intel resources to integrate AVX-512, a ring-bus, etc (and vice versa). VIA can not. They must develop those technologies independently, in a compatible manner.