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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: Ali Chen who wrote (66152)7/19/1999 9:34:00 PM
From: Saturn V  Read Replies (1) of 1585294
 
Ref-"The courts had ruled that copying of Microcode is
also protected by copy right laws>
When the court has ruled this? Before AMD has
created the product, or only after Intel suied
them? "

The courts ruled that microcode was copyright protected in 1986-87 during an Intel-NEC copyright lawsuit. This was long before the Intel 486 even came to the market.

I do not remember all the details of the Intel-AMD 486 litigation. But the newsreports of Intel showing several instances where the microcode could have been written six or seven different ways, but AMD chose to copy Intel exactly, still stick in my mind. The court clearly concluded that AMD 486 was not a clean room design, as claimed by Jerry Sanders. I do not recall if this for ICE microcode, or all microcode.

The ICE microcode is not essential for a typical user, but is essential for any software developer, because most software debuggers use it, and the AMD486 would not have been compatible.

We got into this argument about the credibility of AMD management. The details of the 5 year old legal marathon are fading from most peoples memory, and are not worth arguing about. We should be concerned about the present credibility of someone, given their past history of making misleading and false statements.
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