How will AMD and Intel legal battle effect Apple?

Intel has issued a notification to AMD stating that their x86 license expires in 60 days. That itself isn't news to Apple seeing as they don't use any AMD x86 CPU or AMD anything really. Where it gets a tad interesting is the fact that AMD owns the x64 extension to x86 (Intel/ EMT64 is a licensed version of AMD64) . If I am not mistaken Snow Leopard is supposed to be native 64 bit of course running on Intel CPU's. If Intel goes through with their threat and AMD plays the same card with x64 could we see Intel with the capacity to only produce 32-bit CPU and AMD completely out of the market until the legal squabble is settled in court?

Correct me anywhere I am wrong but I think Apple has a very big stake in this upcoming legal battle.

 

This court battle is far more complex than that. Intel doesn't own every patent that lead up to x86, AMD owns a lot of patents as well. So, if this battle goes full scale, in theory, both companies would not be able to make x86 processors anymore. The same is true with x64.

 

Since you seem to know more about it than I do how does Intel own the right to license away x86 (or not in Nvidia and now AMD case) if they don't even own all of the technology that lead up to it?

 

Intel doesn't wholly own the x86 license. It's a cross license partly owned by both companies. Granted, Intel probably own the majority IP under the license, but you can't build a car without all its components.

 

They will settle. it is a way for Intel to get work a new licensing deal with AMD. As Budding alluded to, taking this all the way to the end would blow up both companies.

 

Actually, it does.

AMD has right to use the x86 via the 2001 agreement for cross-licensing.

The issue here is, however, is that AMD's manufacturing company, GlobalFoundries, which it spun off last year, is not a wholly-owned subsidiary, and therefore, not covered under the agreement. The license, if I'm recalling correctly, states that the company using the license must be the one's, or a direct subsidiary, manufacturing the chips.

But I probably won't continue posting in this thread, since I've gotten threads like these closed thanks to my massive anti-AMD-ness, so...

=P

 

It has nothing to do with the technology or R & D leading up to a product; what's important is who owns the legal rights to it - Patents, Trademarks, Copyright, etc.

That's the thing with legal ownership. Even though a person or company may by law legally have copyright to anything they write or produce, without proof it's a case of one person or business' word against the other.

In the world of product ownership, the only thing that counts is who is left standing with the legal rights to the product. The one that has the legal rights to a product also has the legal right to license all or part of its technology; software companies have been doing it for years, and hardware is no different. Usually licenses are given to competitors when it's "good for business".

That's not always the case however.