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Intel Government Patents The Courts News

Intel Sued for Patent Infringement 263

Posted by CowboyNeal from the familiar-sounding-ideas dept.
mfh writes "All Computers Inc. has filed suit against Intel for infringing on US Patent (5,506,981). Apparently Intel utilized patent-conflicting circuitry to determine the frequency of the input signal to the microprocessor, including Pentium processors. All Computers is asking for the tidy sum of $500 million USD."
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Intel Sued for Patent Infringement More

Intel Sued for Patent Infringement

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  • Another Lawyer money maker (Score:5, Informative)

    by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:08AM (#9213648) Journal
    Did anyone notice that the details are missing in the lawsuit? I read the patent and it I couldn't tell if they were seeking rights to the theory of relativity or dual processor technology. I suspect its speed step technology but who knows. Law cases are getting really thin now-a-days.

    • Re:Another Lawyer money maker (Score:4, Informative)

      by julesh ( 229690 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:16AM (#9213704)
      Looks to me like they're claiming rights to the circuit that's used to generate the internal processor clock signal from the FSB clock signal.

      From they phrasing, they originally designed this circuit for use in "daughterboards" that let you put a fast CPU onto a slow motherboard, which was common back around the 486 days.
      • It also explicitly claims that the incoming clock is divided down to 4 MHz (this exact figure is give n more than once) and then locked to the new clock.

        Intel processors do not use this frequency, they use 33 MHz.

        So what is the point of all this?
        When Intel are violating this patent, they at most are violating some of the claims but not all of them.
        Isn't that required for it to be a patent violation?

        • Violation of some claims is sufficient... (Score:5, Informative)

          by blorg ( 726186 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:59AM (#9213966)
          ...that's why patents start with the most general claims and work down to the specifics. In this case, the general claim for the system is made in (1):
          1. In combination, a computer system board having a socket for a first microprocessor and a clock for generating a first clock signal intended for the operation of said first microprocessor; an accelerator board connected to said socket to replace said first microprocessor;

          said accelerator board having an upgrade microprocessor thereon for operation under the control of a second clock signal having a frequency greater than that of said first clock signal;

          means responsive to said first clock signal for generating a sub-harmonic signal at a frequency that is a common denominator of the frequency of said first clock signal and said second clock signal with a known phase relationship between said sub-harmonic signal and said first clock signal; and

          phase lock loop oscillator means responsive to said sub-harmonic signal for generating said second clock signal in known phase relationship to said first clock signal.
          4Mhz is mentioned further down as a more specific implemention of this general claim [in (4)].
          • See, I always thought that with patents, it's the specific implementation that matters. If I make a widget and use a flux capacitor to power it, and patent it, and then the guy next to me makes a widget and uses a flex capacitor, then he's ok.

            That was my understanding, at least.
            • You are right that it is not the idea of doing something but the method of doing something that is parented. But there can be levels of generality with regard to that method, and it is often left up to the courts to decide what is invalid due to prior art, what is legitimately covered, and what infringes.

              So *for example* if you invent a method of a frequency multiplier because you need to use one in 4Mhz steps, it is reasonable that your patent would also cover someone using an identical implementation exc

              • Re:Violation of some claims is sufficient... (Score:4, Interesting)

                by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @12:05PM (#9216211)
                >f you invent a method of a frequency multiplier because you need to use one in 4Mhz steps, it is reasonable that your patent would also cover someone using an identical implementation except with 33Mhz steps

                That does not sound unreasonable. But when that is the case, *why* does the original patent so explicitly specify the frequency to be 4 MHz??
                I was amazed when I read that. I would not expect such an implementation detail to be specified in a patent.

                It is an interesting invention to have a PLL-driven frequency multiplier as a clock source for a microprocessor (although such a PLL by itself, and its use to multiply a reference frequency by some factor, is of course a pre-existing invention).

                The patent does not say anything about the input and output frequency, but it does mention the 4 MHz intermediate.
                To me, it seems like an integral part of the claims. Probably one that should not have been included...
                • Patents require not only an idea, but an implementation. It used to be that you had to actually give them a piece of machinery, but more recently you submit a detailed account of the hardware that you actually built.

                  So presumably, this company actually built a piece of hardware with a 4 Mhz step.
      • Um, actually it looks to me like they're claiming patent on a PLL circuit.
      • Intel can argue that their processors are not "accelerator boards" and thus are not subject to the claims. All of the claims talk about 3 distinct things: the motherboard, the accelerator board and the fast microprocessor installed on the accelerator board.

        As for the frequency synthesis/multiplication, this is a well-known technique used by radio engineers probably since 1930-s if not earlier.

        I am sure (although too lazy to do the search) that Intel has patents of their own covering frequency multiplicati

    • Re:Another Lawyer money maker (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:34AM (#9213811)
      I think this is symptomatic of having every rich kid's parents pay for them to do law, and many of them not ending up in law... but business.

      So what you have is alot of "legally aware" a-holes who love to try and push every "business advantage".

      They are the other side of capitalism. On one side of capitalism you have inefficient state intervention. On the other you have vested interests who don't want to have to face dynamic markets, they want everything to be wrapped up, safe and secure, for them.

      It's funny that the same people outsource, and yet they are afraid to compete on price with other companies. They are the high priests of globalisation, and it's about time they were recognised as anti-capitalist. These people don't believe in the free markets, they are just on whatever bandwagon it takes to make a profit. The minute someone starts doing something more efficiently than they do, they have a huge cry and resort to the law.

      That isn't capitalism, that's just greed.

      I for one would like to see more economists speaking out against these people as anti-capitalist anti-innovation leeches. We all get to where we are in science because we stand on the shoulders to giants who contributed their work for free to the public domain. Now these leeches make minor alterations and claim they should have a monopoly on the one logical solution to a problem for scores of years. Fuck that.

      That's not innnovation and that's not capitalism. That's the logic of daddy's little little lawyer, who got their job through family connections, corruption through fraternities or a degree from one of the "elite" institutions which allows these smacktards to identify each other.

      There needs to be a capitalist revolution whereby all these people and their anti-capitalist practices are smashed. Because if you aren't a well meaning socialist and if you aren't a well meaning capitalist, I can only thing of one more catergory: criminal.

      • Re:Another Lawyer money maker (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TheHonestTruth ( 759975 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:58AM (#9213964) Journal
        Except that the true capalists are the people that want a monopoly (that's what patents give you) and want to enforce whatever monopoly they have.

        You can view it as greed if you like, but the language of business is money.

        That aside, not all lawyers come from rich families or go to Yale because their Dad's a senator. Some are working class schmoes that had to take out $100,00 loans to go to school and end up working in the county DA's office pulling in only $30k (guess how long those loans will take to pay off) because they want to keep the drug dealers off the streets.

        Not all lawyers are bad, not even all IP lawyers are. What are your opinions on Lessig and the EFF's law team?

        -truth

  • A legal section on /. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by herrison ( 635331 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:08AM (#9213651) Homepage
    We need one. Please!

  • Patents out of hand (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How can you patent the idea of determining a clock rate using circuitry? This is redickulous. Patents have gotten way of out hand and need to be reigned in NOW!

    Hopefully Intel will now see the light and start to throw their weight behind those of us who have seen this all along.

    • Re:Patents out of hand (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Sc00ter ( 99550 )
      Yah, and having like 20 different patents for 20 different ways to make a paper bag makes sense.. And most of those are rather old..

      This isn't new.

    • I doubt it was the idea of determining that there is a patent about but a method for determining it. That can be patented and methods like this are common to patent.

      Now, there are many implementations to determine clock speed, if intel used one that was patented then it was there bad.

    • This suit is fantastic news (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DABANSHEE ( 154661 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @11:20AM (#9215557)
      Only via mega victims/abuse will there be patent law reform.

      It was a real pity BT didn't succeed with it's hyperlink patent suit - the mega-economies would've reformed their patent laws quick smart if BT had succeeded.

      Really the more outrageous the suit & the bigger the defendents, the better off we all are in the long run.

      Fact is law reform virtually only occures if the big end of town are victims of bad laws.
    • Unless it is cheaper for Intel to pay the 500 million and shutup about patent reform.

      If patent reform goes through, how many Intel patents would be invalidated?
    • Anonymous Coward Wrote: How can you patent the idea of determining a clock rate using circuitry?

      Answer: You can't

      From the US Patent Office Website: [uspto.gov]
      A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine. A complete description of the actual machine or other subject matter for which a patent is sought is required.

      The patent that was filed in 1999 is an approved

  • Overdrive (Score:5, Informative)

    by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:10AM (#9213665) Journal
    This looks like it covers something more like the old "DX2" overdrive chips and things, where you install a second chip to upgrade the first. Makes you wonder why they didn't try to sue years ago.

    That's just from my preliminary reading though.

    • Re:Overdrive (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stevew ( 4845 )
      Well, it looks like it's more fundamental than that. Further, I would challenge this one in court because it is obvious to someone skilled in the art, i.e ME!

      It looks like what they have REALLY patented is the method used to multiply up clock frequencies within a phase locked loop system. I would imagine there is prior art on this one going back 50 years.

      If this patent is up-held, I would imagine 75% of all chip designs violate it! This is the same mechanism you use to take a 32Khz clock in and derive 3.

  • One day nothing will be able to be done (Score:5, Insightful)

    by machine of god ( 569301 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:11AM (#9213666)
    Because someone will own a piece of every idea.

    And people will wonder why the US falls behind in tech.

    • Re:One day nothing will be able to be done (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Amiga Lover ( 708890 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:33AM (#9213801)
      Because someone will own a piece of every idea.

      And people will wonder why the US falls behind in tech.

      I see that as what will break the camel's back.

      As soon as areas in Asia keep bounding ahead, further and further, and the US is dragged under by constant patent battles (except for the big 2 or 3 megacorps with patents... patents that don't apply in Asia anyway) then something will have to be done. Things will be changed with legislation, or they'll fall apart.

      Either way, it can't be kept up indefinitely

      • Well in this industry it doesn't really matter that much. Since the chip industry is already very capital intensive and research into new technologies is kinda expensive, this is one area where patents might actually work well. It doesn't seem to me they are patenting purely ideas (like one would with software) but rather a technology, which took much more time and money than simply the idea, to develop. It is just this kind of application that patents aim to protect.

        In any case, the patent is most likely

      • Hence the WTO (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Vthornheart ( 745224 )
        See, that's exactly why the U.S. is such a big backer of the World Trade Organization. Quite frankly, Globalization is really just a shallow attempt to retain the global dominating power of the United States by imposing our regulations on others, such as Patents for example.


        One of the big things that is being pushed by the WTO is global acknowledgement of patents. You can guess who that'll benefit, and who that'll screw over.

    • >And people will wonder why the US falls behind in tech.

      But your lawyers are getting better and better every day. /picz

    • Re:One day nothing will be able to be done (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dmayle ( 200765 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:56AM (#9213942) Homepage Journal

      Patents aren't totally useless, but they way in which they're being used nowadays is kind of dangerous.

      Personally, I think patents should only be issuable to people (individually, or groups), not companies or corporations (even though they have "person" status), and if licenses are offered, they should have to be same for every licensee.

      This would still offer the protection and encouragment to independant inventors, which is why the patent system was designed. In fact, it would offer active discouragement to companies to seek patents on their research, as licensing would have to made available on equal terms.

      Competition would be increased, as larger companies don't have to worry about lawyers or defensive patents, and would have the legal go ahead to emulate or improve their competitors.

      This would also cut down on bogus patents, because, suddenly, all companies who wish to use a tech would have incentive to root out prior art for original ideas. In addition, patent submarining (like the whole JEDEC-RAMBUS fiasco), should be decreased, because the actual submission process for use would constitute prior art!

      • In fact, it would offer active discouragement to companies to seek patents on their research, as licensing would have to made available on equal terms.

        And how, then, do you propose that expensive research gets funded? Higher taxes I suppose?
        • It doesn't discourage research, it just discourages patents on research. In Japan, the patent process is very long, end exceedingly public, which gives other companies time to work on an idea, and improve it enough to make it different before the patent is granted. As such, patents have much less worth in Japan, but that doesn't stop the breakneck speed of research and development. What I'm talking about would still offer patent protection to independent developers, but would increase competition among l
      • Patents are issuable only to people. Those people can later assign the rights to a corporation.
        • All the large companies I have worked with over the last 30 years require that individuals transfer patent rights to the company as a condition of employment. Even the university here is considering the same. What they don't realize is that the requirement stifles patent applications.


          • All the large companies I have worked with over the last 30 years require that individuals transfer patent rights to the company as a condition of employment. Even the university here is considering the same. What they don't realize is that the requirement stifles patent applications.

            Some corporations give their employees a bonus for each patent issued in their name. IIRC Philips gives their employees $100. Though possibly an additional silver dollar might be involved. Yay.
      • They shouldn't be allowed to ask for a cease and desist, or something like that. Holding a patent for the purposes of preventing anyone from using it serves no purpose.

  • Is it really worth it to them? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:12AM (#9213675) Homepage
    With the Eolas victory, this and other previous lawsuits, you'd think that the big guys would push for the ending of patents in their industry. It's not like they have much to lose. Patent machines couldn't come after them and they'd not lose their position in the marketplace.

    I have always had a problem with patents (not industry specific protections like for pharmaceuticals) because I don't believe ideas and methods should be property. As a Christian I find the idea that humans invent knowledge to be ludicrous and offensive. Copyrights can encourage creativity, patents just encourage people to make a product then rape and pillage their industry.

    • Re:Is it really worth it to them? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:20AM (#9213735)
      So does that mean if you come up with some novel idea, intel or some other big company should be able to profit from it, while you don't because they have the capital to persue the idea and you don't? Would it really benefit society if people could only earn money through either manual labor, or being part of the already established business community?

      Patents are one of the few ways new, little companies and inventors can get into the market. Without them the only entities that would ever make money are the established players. Patent abuse and a broken patent system, by themselves, don't make patents in general a bad thing.

      As a Christian I find the idea that humans invent knowledge to be ludicrous and offensive.

      People finding things ludicrous without non-religous justification, or offensive for non-sexual reasons don't typically change policy.

      • So does that mean if you come up with some novel idea, intel or some other big company should be able to profit from it, while you don't because they have the capital to persue the idea and you don't? Would it really benefit society if people could only earn money through either manual labor, or being part of the already established business community?

        Does it benefit society to allow people to restrict who can build on their ideas? This patent is most likely based on an idea that was the base of one In

        • Re:Patents are design a pro-big business measure (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Friday May 21, 2004 @09:34AM (#9214281)
          Does it benefit society to allow people to restrict who can build on their ideas?

          If you add "for a limited time" to your question, then yes, it does. It gives a reason for people to create and, more importantly, to publish. If there is a fear the effort put into creation will come to nothing but the financial enrichment of somebody else better able to exploit an idea, the idea may never be published, but kept secret. Don't forget that patents contain (or are supposed to anyway) full documentation of how to reproduce an invention, and that document becomes public domain at the end of the term. Would people publish their ideas as frequently if it weren't for patents?

          Please don't take my comments as a defence of the current US patent system, but of the patent concept in general. It's a good idea, but a flawed implementation. If I were to change it, along with improving the review process I'd try to work in compulsory licenses and shorter terms...

      • Re:Is it really worth it to them? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by little1973 ( 467075 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @09:07AM (#9214027)
        I have read many comments which supports patents because patents defend the little guy. However, this argument is completely false.

        First, as I read in a comment a few days ago, if the little guy has a patent on something, then most probably the big guy has several patents on things which the little guy uses. Cross licensing comes into effect, so the big guy is the winner here.

        Second, this little guy vs. big guy is only happening because the entry to the market is not free. And it is not free because patents and other IP laws restrict entry to the market. Without them entry to the market would be much easier, so there would be much more firms on the market competing with each other than now.

        Third, patents create a kind of slavery. You have an idea, you patent it, then tell about it to somebody. However, that somebody cannot use your idea because it is patented. It can be said that person thoughts is owned by you. We can call this situation 'Metal Slavery'.

      • "So does that mean if you come up with some novel idea, intel or some other big company should be able to profit from it, while you don't because they have the capital to persue the idea and you don't? Would it really benefit society if people could only earn money through either manual labor, or being part of the already established business community?"

        Yes, we need some level of protection. The problem is patents, at least as they are now, are not the solution at all. Especially if you look at how lo

    • I agree (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:26AM (#9213766) Homepage Journal
      > As a Christian I find the idea that humans invent knowledge to be ludicrous and offensive. Copyrights can encourage creativity, patents just encourage people to make a product then rape and pillage their industry.

      I agree with both of these sentiments. The universe has existed far longer than humanity, and therefore it is totally impossible for us to invent anything beyond method, and all methods are available to us since the dawn of time. While I may be Christian, I am a science-based one; ie: the Bible is a good reference for parable and theories for understanding, and I believe that is the purpose of the tome.

      That said, the patents seem to go against the scientific flow of time, by blocking inventions that build on the history of human science and discovery.

      Why we have to reinvent the wheel every time we want to build a useful product or service is why we are evolving slower than we could. Darwin said that impediments in evolution, or road blocks, must be removed for a species to adapt and overcome. Are we going to adapt? To me, patents infringe on life and our chances of survival as a species.
    • Patents are necessary to protect the investment that gets put into a product. A very good example where patents work is the pharmaceutical industry (the problems with that industry stem from causes other than patents). Without patents to protect drug makers they'd never want to spend the hundreds of millions needed to develop a drug. Producing the drug is cheap, so anyone can come along and make a generic and destroy your ability to pay back the R&D expenses.

      One of the big problems is that patents l
    • > As a Christian I find the idea that humans invent knowledge to be ludicrous and offensive.

      You are welcome to your opinion.

      If you want to change the global state of society to concur with your opinions:

      (a) have a majority elected to parliament;

      (b) go off and find/form your own state;

      Good luck.

      By the way, under the correct system: ideas are not patentable per se, but certainly methods are.
    • With the Eolas victory,
      This [winnetmag.com] Eolas victory? Looks like it is still very much a live issue.

  • Holy extortion, batperson! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Willeh ( 768540 ) <rwillem@xs4all.nl> on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:12AM (#9213677)
    The way i see it, the basic principle of determining frequencies by using a step-up board is pretty common. I didn't more than skim the patent, but it seems to me this kind of stuff has been used for years in a similar sort of way in radio's and other tuning equipment.

    So either these guys are gonna be the SCO of the semi-conductor world, or their crack is pretty good.

    • "So either these guys are gonna be the SCO of the semi-conductor world, or their crack is pretty good."

      I don't see how you find this to be an either/or situation. Doesn't being the SCO of anything by definition mean your crack is good and your smoking lots of it?
  • Major Corporations like this have squadrons of patent-attorneys (or whatever you call them) to handle this stuff.

    This is a case of either:
    • complete incompetence
    • astounding arrogance
    Either way it's a significant embarrasment for Intel as well as a non-trivial financial issue.

  • This might be good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Syberghost ( 10557 ) <syberghost@@@syberghost...com> on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:14AM (#9213688)
    $500 million might be enough to get this changed; it might be cheaper to bribe enough Senators to get a bill through.
    • Microsoft would have already done it. They're constantly in patent litigation. Don't expect any company to try to make the system go away entirely either. They don't want to spend billions in research dollars just so someone else can come along and ride their coat tails for free. They might even like the current system, where all patents get rubber stampped and sorted out in the courts.
  • A sues B, B sues C, C sues A, ad nausium. When is all this going to stop? It seems like it's getting to the point where everyone has something that (intentionally or not) impacts someone else. I say enough already and let the best product win.
    • Ah, but that's the point, see? It used to be that a patent was something that you got in order to safeguard your important advance so as to avoid the "free rider" problem -- that your competitors wouldn't be able to mooch off your R&D costs.

      But now that so many patents are granted where the major expense is the patent application itself, the whole point of the exercise is to assemble a huge portfolio so that no one in the world can do anything without infringing on one of them. Then none of your comp

  • Speed sensing would seem to be useful for anticounterfeiting - the chip could determine if it is being run at higher than rated speed. Either that, or the chip could use the clock rate to detect power-saving modes - disabling parts of the chip when the clock rate drops.

    What's Intel using the allegedly patented tech for?

  • In Related News...... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by write_with_numbers ( 779746 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:16AM (#9213703)
    Coke is filing suit against Pepsi for making a drink with sugar and carbonation and Thomas Edison's grandson is filing suit against GE for using his grandfather's invention of electricity in many of their products without Edison's written permission. I'm really begining to take more interest in the few companies that actually work instead of trying to sue to get ahead.

  • Europe (Score:5, Funny)

    by sleepnmojo ( 658421 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:17AM (#9213714)
    At least this sort of thing can't happen in Europe. Oh wait....
    • There's a web page which lists various MEP's voting records on the issue of patentability of software.

      It's on the FFII UK web site:

      http://www.ffii.org.uk/analysis_uk.html

      With the European elections coming up. It's a good time to have a word with your MEP. It might also be worth asking them why they exist at all if the council of ministers can ride roughshod over the will of the parliament.

      You never know, it might sting them into action on the upcoming vote or replace them with MEPs who *will* vote the w

  • Coming on the heels of Integraph (Score:5, Informative)

    by sacremon ( 244448 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:19AM (#9213725)
    Integraph has just recently gotten Intel to pay them a large sum of money for patent infringment on, you guessed it, the pentium processor. In their case it involved the technology with the memory. Integraph is now off to sue everyone who used the chips who were not covered under the Intel deal. They just got a settlement from Gateway, and are supposedly aiming at HP next.

    I imagine that the success that Integraph has obtained, which was after a very long, drawn out battle that took years, has given this company the idea that they can indeed win a suit against Intel, and given the precedent of the Integraph case, far quicker than Integraph.

  • The American Dream (TM) (Score:5, Funny)

    by JohnCC ( 534168 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:19AM (#9213729) Homepage
    Step 1: Patent generic idea
    Step 2: Wait a few years for people to adopt it
    Step 3: ???
    Step 4: Profit!!

    I'm waiting to sue for my patent "eating food whilst surfing the internet". I'm gonna be rich beyond my wildest dreams!
    • Step 1: Patent generic idea
      Step 2: Wait a few years for people to adopt it
      Step 3: ???
      Step 4: Profit!!

      You do realise that I patented this "Step 1... Step x: Profit!" formula years ago, don't you?

      Any day now I'm going to announce my patent licensing scheme to the world and Slashdot, crippled by the potential fees, is going to capitulate and become my biatch.

      So, say goodbye to the reign of Taco and hello to the reign of WIAK! The King is dead: long live the King!
    • Too late!

      I've patented "A method for extracting money from others for perceived civil wrongdoing" (colloquially known as 'sueing'). So I'll see you in court.

      Good with that, because I've patented "Defending yourself from a method for extracting money from others for perceived civil wrongdoing" as well.
  • SCO, Patriot Scientific, and now All Computers. It's the last cry of a dying company. Fire off the intellectual property missiles and hope they hit something before you get squashed by the counter-suits that're sure to be filed.

  • After a quick read (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the real darkskye ( 723822 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:32AM (#9213798) Homepage
    It looks like the patent is describing any method of running hardware components at speeds faster than the frequency line on the board.

    This vaugly could be anything including having a clock multiplier on the CPU (Look out AMD, Cyrix, Transmeta, VIA, HP, IBM, Apple, anyone else!) however as it was only filed in '93 I think intel can claim prior art with this, given the 80486 DX2/4 used frequency multipliers .. although I can't recall when they were released.

    That aside, its now friday afternoon and its time to clock watch to 5pm!
    • Its not a clock multiplier. The idea is to use a common subfrequency of the two clocks: eg. FSB may be 100Mhz, Processor may be 400Mhz, a common subfrequency would be 4Mhz. This common subfrequency used to drive a PLL which can synchronize the clocks to reduce latencies.

      Ratboy.

  • Bell Labs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SillySnake ( 727102 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:41AM (#9213852)
    I had a professor tell me this story, and never bothered to go back through and check on the truth, but I assume it to be true :)
    He said that Bell labs actully had to wait several years for a patent on the idea of an Field Effect Transistor (FET) to expire before trying to create their own. However, it was while they were trying to create the FET that the BJT was mistakenly invented.
    Just through it was an interesting story about the effects that pattents have on society.. Can you imagine where the computer world might be if we'd gotten the transistor 5 years earlier or even more? It's an exciting thing to think about, and raises questions about patents.. Perhaps we could have cured cancer with that extra computing power.. Maybe we could have cured AIDs.. Or maybe our video games would be that much cooler ;-)

    • Re:Bell Labs (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GileadGreene ( 539584 )
      Can you imagine where the computer world might be if we'd gotten the transistor 5 years earlier or even more?

      Uh... Bell had to wait for the patent on one kind of transistor (the FET) to expire before they could (inadvertently) invent another kind of transistor (the BJT). Given that the transistor apparently already existed (since it was patented) there was no "5 year wait for the transistor" before we could have a computer. Perhaps there was a "5 year wait for the royalty-free transistor", but that would

  • Patent text (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Custard ( 587661 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @08:50AM (#9213895) Homepage Journal
    Not being an electrical engineer, when I read this I thought it sounded link something Professor Fink would invent:

    Apparatus and method for enhancing the performance of personal computers:

    Abstract
    An accelerator board for use in replacing the microprocessor of a slow speed system board with a microprocessor operating at a higher clock speed. The clock signal of the accehhhhlerator board is derived from the clock signal of the system board by first deriving a sub-harmohhhhhnic frequency which is a common denominator of both the system board and the accelerator board clock signal glaven!, and using the sub-harmonic signal to control a phase locked loop oscillator to provide the desired clock speed for the accelerator board...

  • Patent Pending (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @09:13AM (#9214076) Homepage Journal
    I think it's time we have a section and icon for patent issues. Would be nice to look at this mess of patents in one section.

  • Not Even Close!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WildThing ( 143539 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @09:29AM (#9214227)
    IANAL but..

    From reading the patent, It appears to Me that this patent was on a method of installing CPU upgrades to a computer. For example those cards that took a 386 to a 486 or allowed you to exchange the CPU for a faster one and increase the clock speed. These types of cards are about useless anymore! Besides, this patent was applied for in 1993 - I am VERY sure there is prior art. I can remember these types of upgrades as early as 1986. Hell, NEC was offering upgrades as early as 1981, albeit not this type, but it DID upgrade the CPU and increase the clock speed. It was that old V20 CPU and a clock crystal to upgrade your 8088 PC and increase the clock from 4.77mhz to 8mhz. (Hmm.... I* wonder who else on here actually used one of those besides Me?)

    It'll be interesting to see how this playes out, but seems to me that this is a poor attempt by a company that has no market anymore to get a few quick bucks. --- Hey, I wonder if any SCO people are thier relatives ?!?

  • Where do these guys buy pants? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Raven42rac ( 448205 ) * on Friday May 21, 2004 @09:32AM (#9214261)
    It seems it would be pretty difficult to buy pants big enough to hold their gigantic balls. But seriously, it takes guts for a little company to go after such a huge one as Intel. If Intel is found to have violated the patent, then by all means they should pay All Computers. But Intel could have just as easily reverse engineered it, and used the exact same layout by chance. Any lawyers that could clarify this? If it is still infringement if someone reverse engineers it and comes up with a similar or an exact copy of a patent?
  • It becomes increasingly apparent to me that first contact will go something likes this:

    "Welcome to Earth"

    "Nice one. Thanks, really." [Whispers to adjacent green blob, "OK, stand down the megadeath lasers"].

    "So, what can we people of America.. whoops, 'Earth' do for you?" [90% of the human race watching the historical event squirms with disgust]

    "Well, it appears that you chaps have been exploiting the process known to you as 'respiration'. I'm afraid we patented this approximately 7 billion years ago. Yo

  • Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ThisIsFred ( 705426 ) on Friday May 21, 2004 @09:55AM (#9214495) Journal
    Is this patent overly broad. I mentioned in another post it appears to be a patent on a PLL circuit. However, since all chips need to sync to another signal, and CPUs / GPUs in particular use a multiple of the host signal, every processor produced by everyone in the PC industry is potentially infringing.

    The USPTO basically allowed someone to patent the synchronous computer. Read the text of the patent, it reads like a 7th graders description of how a PC works.
    • On the one hand, yes, it's grossly implausible that All Computers (who?) should have a patent on this, and I'm sure there are some nice refereed journal articles that count as prior art, along with lots of IBM lab note books, do recall that at one time we didn't have this, and processors did run at bus speed.... up until the 68060 in motorolla land, the 601 in mac land, and the DX2 in intel land, if I remember correctly.
  • Isn't this about those OverDrive processors we saw back in mid 90-s? e.g. turn your old 386 into a 486DLC?
    These guys are sure taking their sweet time calling Intel on it......

    In other news, Commodore has been making accelerator boards for the Amigas way before PC's - you were able to override the stock 68000 processor with a 68020 or 68030, or if you're l33t, a 68040 *gasp*.. The upgrade always came on a circuit board the size of a large video card.
  • Unsurprisingly, 90% of /. either hasn't read the patent, or made up their minds before they did anyway and weren't paying attention. This is not the "breathing, in the general vicinitiy of a computer" sort of patent. It's extremely precise. I'll dumb it down for you and just tell you that they basically patented using Phase-Locked Looping to allow a processor to run at a higher clock frequency than the motherboard knows how to deal with, when the GCD of the processor frequency and the motherboard bus fre
    • You are quite likely to be correct on all, or most, of that, but also the patent makes explicit mention of a board (containing new CPU and logic etc) being plugged into a socket. That is entirely different to having it all on-chip, the patent appears (IANAL) to not include that, so it is irrelevant anyway, and for the reasons you say too. But, the 4MHz is only mentioned in one of the claims, unless I am mistaken, so it is not really relevant, it is the more general claims that would matter.

      If I weer Intel,

  • Sorry, just can't stay away from this article. I also believe that there is prior art for the patent in question. This company [gvp-m.com] produced "infringing" products prior to the patent being issued in 1996, and IIRC even prior to the 1993 submission of the patent. I can't find anything on the web, but I'm going to dig up some old copies of my computer rags to see if I can find the first "accelerator" board for the Amiga, which I'm fairly certain was sold prior to 1990 (and definitely prior to 1993).

    Can anyone els
  • Now I have a question:

    Does the Patent Office have a process for filing an invention as Prior Art, so that a company that invents something and wishes it to be public domain can prevent it from being taken and patented by someone else? It seems to me that if a company wished to create things so it could allow them to benefit society as a whole, there would have to be some way to protect that item from patent without having to patent it yourself.
    • In most countries, you just publish the invention, and no-one else can then ever patent it, including yourself after a short time. Copyright issues can also be dealt with at the same time, you could put it under GPL or Creative Commons, or some other licence. In fact, the licence you use could explicitly disallow patenting, if you wanted to be sure, and I think that would have effect in the US, where publication alone does not.

      In fact the US system is very wrong, as has been said on /. before, because someo

  • My grandfather [earthlink.net] invented the low-frequency sine function generator about 40~50 years ago, and sold it to HP. It worked in part because he was able to isolate a frequency standard from its output using an amplifier, which is now a fairly ubiquitous design. Tricks involving subdividing a signal to make it a higher frequency, or lowering the frequency by abandoning some portion of the signals are not only obvious and well known to anyone who has taken a physics instrumentation lab, but where well understood at
  • I think that what we need is a legal barrier against patents against profitable enterprise. Pentium chips have been around awhile, and it's not like they were part of a cloak and dagger operation.

    Sure, if a company X uses my technology I should be able to put forth an initial lawsuit to either block the usage or seek royalties. What I should not be able to do, is hold my patent cards close to my hand whilst waiting for anothers' product to make a big profit, then try to capitalize on their profit by suein
  • A simple two-pronged solution exists, and in reality should be supported by the big players in the industry.

    Keep in mind that patents are government-sanctioned monopolies given in return for the advancement of the arts and sciences.

    1) Any idea which is implemented by anyone else before
    A) You implement it, or
    B) It is published/awarded a patent
    is not patentable. Obviously, it is not novel and/or you are not the one advancing the arts and sciences. You don't deserve a patent.

    2) In order to enforce a pat
  • IANAL, but I did think that a patent had to contain some kind of inventive step. This one does not, it is well-established engineering, with nothing new at all. It was being done well before 1996. I think there must be lots of prior art, no doubt the resources of Intel will be able to find plenty.

    They have worded the patent very badly, so that it clearly applies only to a plug-in accelerator. Intel don't make these! Also, it looks to me as if it is easily worked around by soldering the processor in, instea

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