Intel Submits Patent Covering Itanium Instructions 167
chris.bitmead writes: "Rather than submit garden-variety claims to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Intel is
trying to patent the functions carried out by specific instructions. In doing so, the company appears to be, in effect, trying to patent the IA-64 instruction set itself." Is this an attempt to block out even reasonable competition, or is this just "business as usual" as at least one voice in the story says?
Re: It seems... (Score:1)
Re:Who cares? (Score:1)
Nobody uses it? Well since it hasn't really been released yet that is kinda of understandable.
Also have you actually looked at the instruction set? They have some really novel stuff. If it is new then go for it, patent it.
However like a previous poster said, the patent system would be great if it was 3-5 years patents, not 20 year patents.
Benno
Re:oh great. (Score:5)
One interesting design was that of the PIOS One, which put the north bridge and the CPU(s) on a daughterboard that plugged into a PCI bus. Unfortunately it never got passed the prototype stage but it would have made for an easy way of changing CPU families and even changing the number of processors (up to four).
Not instr-set patent, just part of implementation (Score:2)
No, this looks like merely a patent on particular aspects of the implementation of certain instructions. As long as the implementation details aren't generic catch-all ones that every competitor would have to implement identically, this seems relatively innocuous as patents go.
Keep it coming!!!!1 (Score:1)
She's doing what it takes to survive (Score:3)
She's just doing what it takes to survive, since she's just been abandoned in her existing relationship with her bosses; her entire world has just come crashing down, and she's desperately flailing about to try to attach herself to another providing male. And you, as the white knight who's ridden in on your white horse to save her and what's left of the company from this fate, are the perfect opportunity.
If I may hazard a guess, she's probably in her late thirties, not so old that she's given in to societal pressures and renounced her status as "spinster" by marrying the first dweeb with a paycheck who comes along, but not so young that she's holding out indefinitely, as if somehow her hand won't be forced by the same society that grinds us all up and spits us out and won't take no for an answer.
While they're at it (Score:2)
Then if anyone does that to us again, Intel can sue them for us...
And just to prove once and for all youre a moron (Score:1)
MCA all over again? (Score:1)
Re:Why "Anne Marie" is really Signal 11 (Score:1)
Oh come on! Quit whining! (Score:1)
Of course, there's been transitions like this before (Windows 3.1, VESA, Win32, DirectX, Linux, SDRAM, OSS, etc.). This transition is like the previous ones; it requires patience and judgment (though a fat wallet certainly helps).
Personally, I like how Intel is patenting IA64; that way, there won't be any sleazy IA64 imitations out there, as was the case with the K6, IDT WinChip, and Cyrix's entire line of CPUs (quote from the Quake manual: "Computers without an FPU will not run Quake... at all. This includes the now infamous "Pentium-class performance, for less money" knock-off chip [Cyrix 5x86]). Yes, this might be an assembly/C/C++ programmers nightmare, but isn't that why programmers are always learning new things? No? Well they should be; maybe that's why amateur programming stinks so much.
Re:Ridiculous. (Score:1)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Well... (Score:1)
- Intel iAPX32
- Fairchild/Intergraph Clipper
- Motorola/IBM/Apple PowerPC
- MIPS Rx000
- Digital/Compaq Alpha
and have announced support for Intel iAPX64 when it ships. So,it looks like the problem is that nobody buys other architectures since none of these sold well enough to keep in development.Re:Well of course they want to block competition (Score:2)
The solution to this is to axe the $200-300k (or whatever it is) that US Senators bring in per year, after they retire and put that into things like raising salaries on USPTO employees and maybe something like, I dunno, teachers.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Re:Why does everyone still use x86? (Score:1)
Now, don't interpret this as saying that the PentiumX is a good CISC instrution set, it isn't, but why do we not have ANY choices besides having to reinvent 80% of the instruction set in software every time?
Re:What will this cause us to miss in the future? (Score:1)
been there done that (Score:5)
not speaking for my employer. whoever that may be.
Re:oh great. (Score:1)
Hmm, patents used to protect IP and force other competitors to come up with own ideas!
Could it be this is actually a Slashdot story cheering the advantages of patent law?
Oh my god!!
Why not? (Score:2)
For Intel, with AMD breathing down their necks, filing more patents is the smart thing to do. Anything you can do to slow down the other guy will enhance shareholders values, that is what this is all about. It is after all their R&D money and their researchers. As we saw time and again the USPTO is dumb enough to allow this sort of thing, so why not?
Remember, all corporations are out to make money, anything else are just unforeseen side effects.
====
What will this cause us to miss in the future? (Score:2)
Patent App (Score:5)
A computational system in which an operational code (opcode) consisting of a sequence of numerical data instructs an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) to perform an operation on two operands, storing the resulting arithematic or logical result into either of the operands.
What is claimed is:
1. A computational system comprising an ALU (Arithematic Logic Unit), c a operational code decoder, memory bus interface, and microcoded control logic, wherein,
Arithematic Logic Unit further comprises circuitry to perform mathematic operations of addition, subtraction, increment, decrement, multiply, divide, and logic functions of AND, OR, XOR, right and left bit shift;
2. Operational code decoder comprises circuitry that extracts encoded information to direct the activity of the Arithematic Logic Unit (claim 1);
3. Memory bus interface that transfers the operands required by the ALU (claim 1) and instruction opcodes needed by the decoder (claim 2);
4. Microcoded Control Logic which sequences the timing and produces control signals with the proper timing to direct the activities of the ALU (claim 1), Opcode Decoder (claim 2), and Memory Bus Interface (claim 3).
Description Of The Invention
The present invention related to the operation of a computational device, used to execute computational tasks, wherein the computational task to be performed by be programmed by creating a list of operational codes.
.
.
.
maybe someone else wants to continue this... it's late and I'm getting tired...
Re: (Score:2)
What Intel is doing... (Score:5)
After reading this article, and looking at one of the patent mentioned [delphion.com], I'm going to hazzard a reasonable guess at exactly what's going on here:
The problem with this kind of patenting is that the "concept" is closely tied to the "implimentation". That is, the concept may be so narrowly circumscribed that any implimentation is an 'infringing' one.
Also unclear in this whole mess is how a software trap would fit in. Suppose Intel was granted the "broader" patent which covered not just the specific transistor layout of the interrupt return handler, but the more general case of returning interrupt context for IA64. Does this preclude software implimentations of that IA64 instruction (which would be particularly relevant to code-morphers like Transmeta, but even to AMD et al which do translation to microcode)?
I'm by far no Patent Lawyer. If the scope is the narrower one, I see no problem, and indeed, is well within the goal of patents. I'm alot let sanguine if the patent covers more than the circuit design, however.
-Erik
Re:Patent App (Score:2)
Re:Well of course they want to block competition (Score:1)
Re: It seems... (Score:1)
__________________________________
all misspellings were intentional.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
When I'm ready to move up to the 64 bit processors, I'm already banking on AMD's 64 bit solution
So, when do you suppose ordinary computer users, or for that matter, geeky computer users like myself, are going to be moving up to 64 bits? The jump from 16 bits to 32 bits is obvious -- lots of useful programs use more than the 64KB that 16 bits directly addresses, and the work-arounds to get to more memory on a 16 bit CPU were a pain. 32 bits gave us 4GB to address directly. I don't see myself needing more than 4GB of directly addressable memory space soon. 64 bits gives you something like a bazillion bytes.
I know that high-end servers sometimes utilize a massive amount of memory -- and clearly that is the market for 64 bit CPUs now. Will the technology filter down to the user-level anytime soon? If so, why?
Steve
Re:Who cares? (Score:1)
In case you missed every conceivable opportunity to find any information on IA-64, I'd fill in the novelty as follows. Among general-purpose CPUs that hit the mainstream (please remember this bit before flaming me about Multiflow or your favorite DSP or graphics chip), the first implementations of IA-64 will be:
First VLIW-type chip, with at least some potential of avoiding the standard pitfalls of VLIW.
First CPU with extensive support for control and data speculation.
First CPU with register rotation for overhead-free software pipelining of loops.
These may or may not be good ideas. I suspect that some of the stuff that is in the IA-64 architecture will turn out to be a bad idea. Not so much because it's inherently stupid; more because some of the features are going to be hard for compiler writers to exploit, and may become underutilized.
However, no-one who knows anything about computer architecture would deny that the IA-64 is novel.
Re:been there done that (Score:1)
Alphas had up to two cloners. One _was_ Samsung, but they are OEM to Compaq as well now. Mitsubishi was in the 21164PC alliance but it seems they backed out before fabbing them. Both cloners were licenced.
The way Intel supposedly had cloners in the beginning is that to be allowed to be used in military and certain government projects, your products had to be made by more than one company, so Intel licenced out their mask designs. They backed out of the government and therefore the mask licencing market at around the 386 days, so many companies had "486" chips that were poor performers at best and ended up being souped up 386 chips with bigger cache. To keep up since then everyone had to make their own P5 and up designs.
Re:Patents == Innovation? (Score:1)
Companies A & B are in the same industry. Both have $100,000,000 budgeted for a new product.
Company A spends $99,900,000 developing a product (paying programmers and engineers) and spends the remaining $100,000 on marketing.
Company B spends $ 100,000 making a copy of Company A's product and spends their remaining $99,900,000 on marketing their copy.
Guess which one succeeds in the market?
Would you rather see those salaries go to marketing people or programmers/engineers?
Re:been there done that (Score:1)
Incorrect.
Re:Who cares? (Score:1)
Actually it smacks of Rambus tactics, which Intel has recently been decrying. Pot meet kettle?
Whatever you may say about Microsoft, abusive patenting doesn't seem to have been among their sins.
Is this the future? (Score:2)
Oh, Brave New World, that has such people in it.
Simple evolution should not be patentable, period. Evolution of a concept in obvious ways is not novel.
-
News from 10.30.2008 (Score:2)
A recent discovery by a research team from the University of Windsor in Ontario Canada has unlocked one of the secrets to the universe. A recent finding which is the first to quantify what had been previously known as "Dark Matter" has caused a stir amongst Venture Capitalists and Academics alike.
Academics are relieved that a previously misunderstood phenomenon has been resolved. Dr. S.Banndyd head of the Cosmology department at the University Of Windsor is proud of the team lead by Researcher Dr. B. Smith, "This marks a great achievement by the team, and they should be commended. The fundamental truth, now finally understood is marks a boon to human knowledge. The mystery of Dark Matter and gravity is finally revealed. We are ecstatic. But we really owe our discovery to 500 years of public knowledge and contributory research." Dr. Smith is quoted as saying "We knew this to exist, the interaction between DarkMatter and the rest of space, but had simply not been documented before. But we have finally put the facts on paper in a quantitatif manner." he later added "We are very proud - and will be going out for some WalkerVille Ale this eve."
The Head of the Corporatist Whoring Department Mr. F. Mehard is estatic. Citing the case law established in the United States in the earliest years of this century, where corporations were able to patent basic action and fundamental ideals. He feels this will be a boon in license revenue for the institution.
"We have spoken with an array of Venture Capitalists and lawyers, and are sure that a new startup will be founded to commercialize this information." said Mr F. Mehard. "The new corporation will likely be called Gravity Inc., we feel that our patent-filling-slave^H^H^H^H associate will process the request online this morning - we should have our patent by mid-day. This 'Dark-Matter'(TM) ® © which we have described plays such a fundamental part of "RealyGrabbyStuff(TM) ® ©." ReallyGrabbyStuff(TM) ® © is the new trade name chosen for Gravity, and Mr. F. Mehard feels his product will be a hit saying "We fully expect that our Team Of Rabid Lawyers(TM) ® © will have no problem extort^H^H^H^H^H^H closing license deals with the residents of the planet. Without our "ReallyGrabbyStuff"(TM) ® © every person on the planet would be lost to drift in space - and as such, they owe the privilege being Flaeterning(TM) ® © (the expression used when describing the application of "ReallyGrabbyStuff(TM) ® ©") to the new Gravity Inc. Corporation. We were the first to document this behavior completely, and as such are entitled to owning all application of said technology".
Mr. F. Mehard and the Team Of Rabbid Lawyers(TM) ® © then left he University aboard their Anti-ReallyGrabbyStuff(TM) ® © vehicle, bystanders were noticed as saying "boy are we lucky - maybe now we wont have to live in the sewers and eat rats." the departing dignitaries were then seen tossing small pieces of food(TM) ® © and other(TM) ® © stuff down at the hungry academics and students below.
Dont like this vision of the future? Then take control of your country from the bastards! Tell your friends/neighbours/relatives/coworkers to:
Business as usual. (Score:2)
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1)
I think its more a case of (Score:1)
Re:Who cares? (Score:1)
Compared to what? Other 32-bit architectures? Other 64-bit microcomputer achitectures? Or mainframe architectures, which happen to be 100% microprogrammable? It doesn't seem that novel to me.
Yup... And it's not just Intel, it's everybody. (Score:4)
Also, as I understand, it's pretty typical for patents on a CPU to be filed all in a burst around the same time the CPU's info's being rolled out to market. Part of the reason for this is that the patent disclosures themselves sit around in the pipeline, gradually making their way to the USPTO. Then the marketing-side of the company decides to do a Release to Market of some more details, so there's a sudden rush to flush the pipeline so that the company doesn't forego any patent protection on those patented ideas that may be presented in the RTM.
At least, that's how it looks like it works here for the patents I was involved with on TI's TMS320C6400 CPU. I won't comment further on the content of those patent applications, or the purpose behind them other than to say I think all the semiconductor companies play the same game here.
So, don't just single out Intel, 'kay? And put your conspiracy theories away. This is just business as usual, and its purpose is to give the originating company an advantage and a defensible barrier against direct competition by cloning. It just so happens that cloning is more important in Intel's world than many other worlds, so people get hypersensitive about it.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision! [schells.com]
Only the paranoid survive (Score:1)
Must be afraid of being like ZEROX.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:1)
There is real scope for a massive industry split. Remember when IBM tried to reclaim the PC market with the PS/2 and "micro-channel architecture", a non-ISA bus which they had patented? (1987). The world of the PC just walked away from them and did its own thing, EISA and so on.
This could be the luckiest break that AMD will ever get.
Re:Well... (Score:1)
Future of x86 IA (Score:1)
Economically, they must - the patents won't be licensed, so there is no other alternative but bankruptcy. I predicut x86's lifetime will be lengthened significantly by this development.
Anyone want to start the FISF (Free Instruction Set Foundation)?
Re:Patent App (Score:2)
Re:Intel IA-64 Patents not totally illegitimate (Score:3)
That is EXACTLY what you are supposed to patent. You are not suposed to patent "ideas". You are supposed to patent specific implementations. If you are correct (I haven't read the patent, not being fluent in legalese), then there is absolutely nothing wrong with this patent.
what's good for the goose (Score:1)
Intel dons the Janus Mask (Score:2)
In other Intel news, The Reg has this hoomerous piece [theregister.co.uk] on Intel views on the P4 release schedule.
"Hello, Intel? Please connect me with Bud and Lou."
--
Re:oh great. (Score:2)
Re:She's doing what it takes to survive (Score:1)
Re:been there done that (Score:2)
Yes and no. The distinction has to be made between patenting the instructions themselves and patenting the implementation of the instructions. Not everyone is so terribly protective of their instruction sets. For example, for USD 99, you can obtain an unlimited license to produce SPARC processors, and to use the name SPARC in association with them. At the same time, it would probably cost you 99 BILLION dollars to get the chip masks for the UltraSPARC-IIIs. The instruction set is "out there," but the implementation is not.
The question I have to ask here, though, is - Does anyone really care about ia64? It's not a good architecture, and it's not a good instruction set. Like everything else Intel does, it'll be a technical dud that earns commercial success through heavy marketing and lots of exclusive contracts. That is, assuming they ever actually mass-produce the things, which seems in doubt as they're already 2 years late and counting.
AMD's better Hammer architecture
This isn't a comparison I'd like to have to make. On the one side, you have Intel finally trying to cast off the shackles of 30 years' worth of backwards-compatibility - a good thing - and still managing to botch things horribly. On the other side, you have AMD trying to extend an ISA that has been extended far, far too many times already, an ISA that wasn't very good to begin with. If you ask me, both comapnies have the wrong idea. I for one will be sticking with MIPS and SPARC until they finally die. Here's to hoping that will never happen.
Re:Well of course they want to block competition (Score:1)
Or, instead, we can allow the situation to continue to deteriorate until Congress steps in and changes the patent rules. That might be good... or it might be very, very bad. We just don't know.
-- Michael Chermside
Re:Who cares? (Score:1)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:1)
Re:Why not? (Score:1)
Corporations would do well to remember that customers are just out to get good value for their money, and whether the corporation makes a profit or not is just an unforseen side effect. Intel has been churning out vapor in the processor field for a few months now. When they do turn out an actual product it's a disaster. They're falling farther and farther behind AMD. It would be unfortunate for them if there was a fork in the processor architecture and they found themselves standing on the wrong side of it. Because at the moment, the company with the higher-quality product stands the better chance of running away with the market. In my ever-so-humble opinion.
Re:I think its more a case of (Score:1)
Ah, but INTERCAL has prior art, with its bitwise, unary AND .
--Joe--
Program Intellivision! [schells.com]
Quick! (Score:2)
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
This is great I love it. (Score:2)
This will eventually cause harm to people and industry. When something finally hits people in the wallets then the government will take notice. Maybe this is that one last staw that will break the camels back. Maybe this will push congress into doing something about technology patents.
Or maybe even better Intel will get the patents. It will refuse to liscense them to anyone. Every other major chip vendor in the world will get together and create a pc based on a sane architecture. Linux will get ported over very quickly to the new improved architecture along with BSD, BeOs, and other alternatives. Windows being tied to the 80x86 architecture will take much longer to port. People seeing the vast improvements good hardware that is open standard can bring to desktop software will buy the new hardware and of course install linux, bsd,(insert operating system of choice) since windows is delayed for the next decade or so.
OK happy halloween. I was just kidding none of that will ever happen. Intel will probably get its patent and any other patent it wants, it will try to keep from liscensing it but will eventually give in because of the threat of monopoly charges.
----I promise never to write a responce drunk again I swear!!
Re:Why not? (Score:2)
I think this sort of development quite similar and I'm not sure I see where society benefits from Intel patenting simple instructions.
I know all the standard arguments i.e.: by locking down everything that can be considered IP they can make more money and thus make better products for society. But the experience of the last 20 years or so would seem to show that one company cannot provide all that our society/ecomony/community needs, even though they are quite capable of *controlling* all those. Our needs require a competition *and* co-operation i.e. standards & interoperability.
I would like to end on a positive note and urge all the americans reading here to use whatever means you can to force a re-evaluation of intellectual property's place in your very important economy. I know a lot of people think their vote doesn't matter, or that a vote for third party candidates is somehow wasted - I believe very strongly that this is not the case. The vote is your only guaranteed input into the running of your state - use it! And if you don't like the choices, start working now for better ones in election years to come!
is anyone surprised (Score:2)
oh goody goody (Score:3)
Re:Well of course they want to block competition (Score:2)
Re:From the outside ... (Score:2)
Some days it really pisses me off that there's no "misinformative" option in moderating.
If you are aware of such a treaty, feel free and provide such a citation. If you heard this from your mother's friend's sister's secretary, do a little fact-checking first.
There is a World Intellectual Property Organization [wipo.int] which does accept patent applications. However, it does not grant worldwide patents. It merely expedites applying for patents in several countries (or regional organizations, see below), but it's still up to each individual country (or regional organization) whether or not to grant the patent.
There are three regional organizations I know of which grant patents which are applicable across multiple countries: the European Patent Office [european-p...office.org], the African Regional Industrial Property Organization [wipo.net] (covering much of English-speaking Africa), and the Organisation Africaine de la Propriete Intellectuelle [wipo.net] (covering much of French-speaking Africa). However, each of these organizations have their own offices for evaluating patents. So you can't just go to the Estonian Patent Office, have your application examined by them, and get a European patent. A European patent application is examined by EPO itself.
Re:obvious point (Score:2)
Intel IA-64 Patents not totally illegitimate (Score:5)
This article is sort of silly. "In effect, trying to patent the instruction set itself" is a fairly vague notion; in fact, what Intel is doing is patenting some of their software techniques (expressed usually in small groups of instructions) for prefetching and control/data speculation. Right or wrong, this happens all the time. If some company has a nifty new caching algorithm, they will patent the idea; not the gatelist and implementation.
For example, if you could implement a IA-64 clone by (say) ignoring all prefetch instructions, and just fetching the data when it was needed (effectively turning the chk instructions into the actual loads, for those who are aware of this stuff - you could do it with binary translation). While this may not be a very good idea, it wouldn't infringe their prefetching patent, even if you used the same instruction mnemonics and produced a chip that could run the same binaries.
Personally, I think these patent are potentially disturbing, but put it in perspective with common practice. Read the back of Microprocessor Report sometimes; there are lists upon lists of patents being granted for techniques in exactly the same fashion as above.
As for the patents, I haven't read them, but I suspect that they'll have a tough time with them. IA-64 didn't spring out of nowhere, and a lot of the ideas that went into it follow a fairly predictable (no pun intended) path of development in academia and industry. A fairly stacatto summary of these paths can be found at Historical background for HP/Intel EPIC and IA-64 [clemson.edu] - if you don't already know something about computer architecture, don't expect to be illumined. The point is, Intel (or more accurately Idea or whatever the Intel/HP collab. is called) hasn't necessarily added that much to prior art here, so the patent may be too broad and subject to either legal attack, or too narrow and easily worked around.
Oh, and to the people cheering on the failure of IA-64, I beg to differ. Some of us write compilers and binary optimizers and code generators, and the death of the x86 architecture would make us very, very happy. The fact that the first IA-64 is going to be a dog isn't really that suprising - it's a huge engineering task and the first chip was always going to be a reference chip more than a serious performance model.
Re:What will this cause us to miss in the future? (Score:2)
IIRC, Intel needed to allow others to create clones in order to qualify for government procurement, which requires more than one source exist for technology. Of course, it's quite logical for them to have supposed that a sizeable chunk of their market would be for the government, after all, how many people in the late 70's knew that computers would be in daily household use by now?
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Public domain nothing to do with patents (Score:2)
Intel's Newest Copyright (Score:2)
When asked why they weighted this long to file this copyright, they answered "Well, we got a few lawyers on lone from Rambus and Amazon so when they suggested it we said -- Why Not!"
Intel wants to kill Itanium (Score:2)
Re:been there done that (Score:2)
Cast my votes with Alpha AXP and POWER architectures...
--
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
At the present time, for home use, we've got home systems usually with 128Mb or 256Mb, and the 4Gb address space.
Many people are having problems hitting the 4Gb limit on servers and other high memory usage systems, I predict that bank switching solutions will again come in vogue for these applications, and within 5 to 7 years, the home user will have the same problems.
Evolution? (Score:2)
Re:Intel IA-64 Patents not totally illegitimate (Score:2)
What is Intel really trying to patent here? Not ideas, that's for sure. They're trying to patent low-level implementation details like how certain instructions impact data flow throughout the IC. Such "inventions" belong in the public domain, and only give ammunition to people who want to abolish intelllectual property altogether.
The real purpose here is clear for anyone to see: to set up a legal minefield for AMD and anyone else who wants to clone the IA-64. Hopefully the people in USPTO will think twice before rubber-stamping this particular load of crap.
As to the death of the x86 architecture: it will probably happen at around the same time we switch from fossil fuels and start using the metric system. It will certainly be very chilly in hell. ;)
Haven't you heard? Old standards never die, they just get extended, extended, and extended some more until you can hardly recognize them.... and they're a real mess. :)
From the outside ... (Score:2)
Naturaly, the next tought that pops-up is: " Ooops ... There's a big bunch of treaties to make patents valid worldwide
That get's me worried!!!
When, and if, the problems with the U.S. patents office are sorted out, the problem will move elsewere - if patents are global in reach, companies will simply try to patent things (anything) in the places in which they are more likely to be granted so as to increase the number of worldwide patents they have. Competition between "patent heavens" (places were patents are easely granted), will drive restrictions on the granting of patents to zero.
I can just see the great patents of the future:
Excuse me, i have to go and throwup now ...
Re:been there done that (Score:2)
I know this partly because I was called in to secure the records of a certain collection agency in SoCal several years ago. They ran the public domain (old!) MVS on end-of-life IBM hardware (for which I think they didn't have maintenance, as that cost more than the hardware was worth).
In case you didn't catch the drift of "secure the records," the company was in receivership, and it was the sort of situation where someone was going to go to prison (misappropriation of customers' moneys). The owners were on the lam, and the poor guy who was Operator/Systems-Programmer gamely helped me to capture their files (on the old 9-track reel tapes, using bare TSO commands). [I do hope he found a good next job - he was good but saying he knew MVS 0.9 wasn't leading-edge!]
Then there was the owners' secretary, who - to quote the Partner on the job - "liked the cut of my jib" - and hinted about her upcoming weekend in Palm Springs.
Ahem,... it's now usual for hardware companies to patent their instruction-sets. Intel, AMD, MIPs, et al - they all do it as a matter of course in their business operations.
However, the real issue is _which_ instruction set will gain favor with developers. Will it be the (lame, IMHO) Intel Itanium, or AMD's better Hammer architecture?
Why can't it be both? (Score:2)
Why can't it be both? Both an attempt to block out even reasonable competition and and business as usual.
I don't mean business as usual, in the Microsoft sense of being in the actual business of eliminating competition, but I mean "as usual" in a sense of this is the kind of thing that big corporations do?
Re:Patent App (Score:2)
Unfortunately, in the US today prior art does not stop you getting a patent. Instead, you have to file a lawsuit challenging the patent first, then bring the prior art as evidence, and hope the judge agrees with you.
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Re:Well of course they want to block competition (Score:4)
I would not have a problem if.... (Score:2)
oh great. (Score:3)
Re:been there done that (Score:2)
Well of course they want to block competition (Score:5)
As soon as anyone gets a patent they immediately receive a virtual monopoly on that product. It lasts for a lot longer than the product could practically be useful for. It needs to be sorted out, but by whom? The US Government ain't gonna do it. They need the corporate contributions.
Re:Well of course they want to block competition (Score:3)
Who cares? (Score:4)
This patenting of specific functions smacks of Microsoft tactics, but oh well. This might have worked back with the 16 and 32 bit processors, but since AMD is developing a completely different architecture, the big competition is still going to be there.
Re:Oh come on! Quit whining! (Score:2)
Hello?!? Alpha? SPARC?
Yes, this might be an assembly/C/C++ programmers nightmare, but isn't that why programmers are always learning new things?
Can you explain what you mean here? I don't follow.
Re:Intel IA-64 Patents not totally illegitimate (Score:3)
Yes, they are patenting ideas, albeit mindnumbingly specific ones (something for which we should be grateful; the specificity and dullnes s of the patent application is a bit hint at how little new stuff is introduced with one of these patents). I don't think that they _should_ be able to do this. I didn't say that I thought Intel having these patents is good, I said that they were possibly legitimate, in the sense of all the other CPU architecture patents out there. Personally, I think most of these patents are utter drivel; a mountain of prior art with a tiny cairn of original work perched on top of it.
I don't know what you mean by "how certain instructions impact data flow throughout the IC". Ummn, don't all instructions affect data flow throughout the IC? This is so vague as to be meaningless. Can you give an example of how you think such a patent could restrict a whole class of other implementations?
Despite all this, I'm mostly in agreement with you here. I do think they are laying a legal minefield for other IA-64 implementers. I wouldn't call it cloning, as one clones a chip, not an instruction set. I am pessimistic about the USPTO doing anything; most of those other patents at the back of MPR went through without any problems that I heard of. The fun starts later, when two deep-pocketed companies get into it.
If this interests you, here's more (Score:3)
Wouldn't it be nice (Score:2)
Maybe the real issue is, which instruction set will gain favor with customers. I've been around the block enough times now to see that technical superiority means absolutely nothing as to whether something will gain favor in the marketplace. Let's see... MS-DOS/p-System, VHS/Beta, 8088/68000, IBM-PC/Macintosh, USB/Firewire, MS Windows/(insert any other OS here), etc.
[Aside: the original IBM PC was offered with two operating systems: MS-DOS and the p-System. The p-System was superior in many ways.]
As to whether it will be the Intel Itanium, or AMD's Hammer architecture, maybe it could be both? Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to have this kind of standardization? Maybe we could have standard memory, busses, card slots, usb, and other interfaces to ensure component interchangability, but maybe we no longer need to standardize on a particular instruction set? Wouldn't this free up resources to do real innovation, rather than expending effort to come up with innovative ways to make the ancient 8088 instruction set faster? After all, all modern OSes are architecture neutral. Apple developers have now been shipping "fat binaries" (i.e. compiled for two different architectures) for years. [This naturally begs the issue of doing the final code generation on the target OS.]
Intel and Delays (Score:2)
Let's try and get this patent pushed through as quickly as possibly
Why?
Because at the rate Intel is going, it will expire before working chipw actually hits the market
BTW, How long have SGI and Sun been using 64bit Risc?
Re:Why don't they patent the whole instruction set (Score:2)
Pitty!
intel appears to be maybe possibly looks like... (Score:3)
Some experts "wonder" whether Intel...
Not that I'm saying that it isn't possible that Intel is doing this, but the fact that they suddenly submitted a bunch of patents hardly constitutes evidence. Not to mention the fact that the reporter hasn't even gotten anyone to go on the record to claim authorship of this pondering. So basically its all just suppositions. Certainly always possible, and knowing computer corp. strategies even likely, but shoddy journalism is still shoddy journalism.
What's the big deal? (Score:3)
- Merced/Itanium has been delayed countless times.
- Performance predictions (at least for the first generation or IA64) have been scaled back to the point that it appears that IA32 will be more performant in the same timespace
- AMD is going forward with their own 64 bit chip, the sledgehammer. This has the advantage that it will (probably) have a much smaller die and use much less radical design techniques.
- IA64 is so tied to compiler technology (that isn't good enough right now) that performance will be a huge problem at least for the near future.
- IA64 is, in general, in a state of massive hemmorhaging. (as with most of Intel's near future plans, but that's another story)
Given all of this, I'm inclined to believe that their patents (which I'm sure they will get..."Bring it on Intel"
-Chris
Well... (Score:4)
They're reliant on Microsoft to stay in business. While people don't really have a choice about Microsoft (don't. You know, and I know, that there are always better options to Microsoft, but do you expect Joe Idiot to install Linux?), they do have a choice about Intel. As more and more people are shying away from Intel in favour of IDT WinChip, Cyrix, AMD, and other giants, Intel would only shoot itself in the foot by enforcing such a move.
Microsoft would not be very friendly to having to write new versions of all their operating systems, each coded to a different architechture. They aren't very happy with having an Alpha and an x86 version of Windows NT. How do you think they'll react to an Intel, and x86, AND an Alpha version of Whistler?
Re:Business as usual. (Score:3)
Nope, my guess (without having checked the details of the patent) is that this is an attempt by Intel to get some leverage over Transmeta (or anyone else) incase they want to simulate the instructions in software. I'm sure Intel would love to get their hands on some of Transmeta's patents.
My patent (Score:3)
Sure, people have been using phone numbers for similar effects for a long time, but this particular number has always been mine.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Re:Who cares? (Score:3)
I'm suprised. Really. I had long understood that the industry had agreed that specifications are not patentable. Implementations, yes, but not specs. This is why it is legal to create plug-in replacements for things like windows, libc, whatever; because their APIs are unprotectable. Of course, you are under no obligation to publish any or all (c.f. intel undocumented instructions) of these APIs.
Surely the instructionset of a CPU is its API? Now if intel were patenting nifty tricks to implement these instructions, all would be well, but I just don't see how anyone could think it possible to patent an API (MIPS case nonwithstanding -- key here is the subclaim "and method for same", I think).
So I'll throw this out for discussion: what nifty implementation tricks do you see as patentable?
Negative example: the tomasulo algorithm, which is a big ball of hair implementationwise but effectively just renaming.
Positive example: outof order commit with exception coherence.
Crusoe couldn't emulate Itanium if it tried. (Score:2)
is an attempt by Intel to get some leverage over Transmeta (or anyone else) incase they want to simulate the instructions in software.
Transmeta's Code Morphing technology is designed to emulate CISC architectures. Itanium is a VLIW (explicitly scheduled RISC) machine.
I'm sure Intel would love to get their hands on some of Transmeta's patents.
Transmeta's most obvious patent that I can see is a "commit/rollback" structure for registers. However, prior art for this dates all the way back to the Z80 processor, which had two parallel sets of registers.
Re:I just have one question... (Score:2)
Re:Well of course they want to block competition (Score:2)
No, it's not a perfect analogy, but it gets the point across. For every company that abuses the patent office, there is another that does not. Just because a system allows you to exploit it doesn't make it your obligation to do so, nor does it remove any moral obligations to behave responsibly.
And who do you think payed for the patent office to get to this state? Do you really think they decided they were just to strict in their criteria for handing out patents? Or that incompentence magically appeared in the last twenty years, where as they had been doing a great job beforehand?
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
It's been done. (Score:2)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
No (Score:2)
in the past. Chips since the Pentium essential
emulate x86 on a RISCish substrate. Emulation
will continue as long as the software is around.