I'm not an attorney, but I am knowledgeable about copyright and trademarks, and it is less clear to me if Intel can TRADEMARK MMX (this is a trademark issue, NOT a copyright issue, and I hate to see it referred to as such).
I think the issue hinges on this: If the courts accept that MMX is just three letters, I think Intel will win. But if the courts accept that MMX is an acronym for Multi Media Extension, then I think Intel will lose. Random letters are trademarkable, for example XEROX (before it acquired its meaning), but descriptive terms [Multi Media Extensions] are not. Intel has maintained, ALL ALONG, that MMX did not stand for ANYTHING. John Dvorak [Inside Track columnist and author] maintained at one point that it stood for Matrix Manipulation Extensions [which is a lot of what it does], or something similar. But the matter of whether it is just three random letters or whether it is an acronym could end up being absolutely CRITICAL to the outcome of this case if it goes to court. Because descriptive terms generally cannot be trademarked.
As to the importance of the outcome, in principle it could be terribly important. But in practice, can you really see either AMD or Cyrix making any significant dent Intel even if they win ?
Now, having said that, let me try something else: I believe that AMD MAY be a better INVESTMENT later this year than Intel. My reasoning is this: by 2nd half 97, AMD will probably be shipping a Pentium Pro class chip w/MMX [whatever it is called] that has a low enough power consumption to be used in a notebook computer. Intel will not have such a chip for 6 to 9 months later. I do not believe that this will have a significant adverse impact on Intel, indeed one of my INTC concerns is Intel's reaching capacity and not being able to make all that it can sell. But this situation could have a dramatic positive impact on AMD, which is a MUCH smaller company. I believe that INTC will be at 160 to 200 by 2Q97, while AMD will be 20's to high 30's. From those levels, I believe that AMD has the POTENTIAL to triple by 1Q98. Intel could, possibly, go to 300's. But the percentage increase potential is greater for AMD.
What do you guys think of this analysis ? |
