Author here. Just wanted to share one point I've been pondering after writing the article. The legal action over the V20 started when NEC sued Intel, not the o

Author here. Just wanted to share one point I've been pondering after writing the article. The legal action over the V20 started when NEC sued Intel, not the other way around. I wonder if Intel held off suing NEC first as they felt that their legal case was weak - the two microcode programs were very different after all. Only during discovery would it have become clear that members of the NEC team who had seen the 8088 code had also worked on the V20. In the end a four year court case was probably a good outcome for Intel and starting the case possibly a mistake by NEC.