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Intel and AMD Settle Antitrust, Patent Lawsuits
Kohenkatz writes "Intel has agreed to pay $1.25 billion to AMD. In return, AMD will drop its lawsuits about patent and antitrust complaints. The two companies released this joint statement: 'While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development.' The press release also says, 'Under terms of the agreement, AMD and Intel obtain patent rights from a new 5-year cross license agreement,' and that 'Intel and AMD will give up any claims of breach from the previous license agreement.'"
Seriously, this number seems low to me. The pending suits against Intel alleged that for a decade Intel conspired to freeze AMD out of the market. Intel poisoned nearly all of AMD's potential customers. Surely that cost AMD a lot more than just a billion or so dollars in lost revenue.
You don't care if you have a lot of money
My other signature is a car
but we still have to worry about intel bullying manufacturers like dell into using intel only. the dropping the lawsuit, 5 year no fire period is good though...
is to get its shit together Fab-wise. They've been leading Intel for nearly 10 years in developing or deploying new tech and architecture
but Chipzilla has always been able to keep abreast because of their fabrication prowess.
Now that Intel's Nehalem architecture has all of the elements that AMD has been delivering with the Athlon and its descendants,
they're back to being the budget brand.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The European Commission has set an example by fining Intel 1.45B. No US court was likely to award much more than that. AMD can make much better use of the cash now, rather than a few years down the line. And Intel can do without being continuously accused of cheating. Rest assured that the agreement has included quite a few provisions regarding dirty play in the future, but don't expect those to be made public.
I don't understand US law but if intel have done something worthy of an antitrust suit isn't it down to the DOJ to go after them?
Or was this some sort of civil antitrust suit?
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
This still doesn't resolve a major problem in the chip industry and that is that these two companies have a duopoly on x86 and x86-64 chip designs due to patents. I'm not a patent lawyer, but I really don't see how Intel can possibly patent an instruction set (the implementation thereof, sure, but the instructions themselves?). Until these companies are forced to license to third-parties, we'll still see a real lack of competition.
___AMD and Intel have made agreements previously, only to not be happy with the results. In particular, the first time, it looked very much as if as soon as they agreed to cross-license, AMD stopped innovating and depended upon Intel for product development. Intel felt cheated.
AMD and Intel have also agreed to stop suing each other previously. I wonder how long it will last this time.
The good news is that for a while some lawyers won't be getting any money.
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Jumped in a little late, here you go.
Q: So what does this mean ... in terms of ... ownership
Um uh, um uh. We have a obviously very important relationship with Abu Dhabi, global foundries is part of the vision of AMD, great thing for industry and us ... we will be implementing the agreements
the key thing here is that for AMD and for global foundries, this addresses anybody's concerns about robustness and entitlement
AMD the product company is well-poised to move ahead on its strategy in order to serve the market and be a key buzzword blah blah blah
the new patent cross-license between AMD and intel does give AMD broad rights
no longer requires global foundries to be structured as a subsidiary of AMD
Q: intel has agreed to provide business practice provisions
think of it in terms of marketplace and customer access ... in the compiler business, compilers will not unfairly/artificially impair the performance of our products, we're never looking for any help, just not unfairly... intel has an obligation not to do things simply designed to hurt us
ability for multinational OEMs and key channel partners to have "freedom of action" and choice to differentiate offerings between AMD and intel
respect to specific practices and ground rules, the agreement... totally transparent about this, the agreement will be totally public as quickly as we can achieve that
the key points are for us that intel will not be able to condition doing business with them on not doing business with us, that's one way I would put it. they can't use inducements in order to force exclusive dealing, delay customers from using our products, delaying companies from delaying advertising... withholding benefits from OEMs
blah blah lots of repetition of buzzwords like 'ecosystem' and 'productitivity gains'
Q: global foundries separation timeline
clearly gives AMD, global foundries, and atek flexibility esp. in light of acquisition of charter, and does pave the way for merger of charter and global foundries, but no announcemnet being made, no timeline
Q: ?
We are trying to reset the relationship between AMD and intel. That relationship has been intense, emotional, and at times acrimonious for ... all too many years. The one thing that I would say that is a touchstone principle ... we are going to be fierce competitors in a free and open marketplace, we are going to be mutually respectful, we want to put this behind us... healthy, normal relationship that competitors do. you will see in the agreement fought-out procedures by which we will build relationship and trust and try to resolve our differences without spilling into the courts, into the public affairs domain. this is a start and both parties intend this agreement to be an opportunity to pivot the relationship and go forward in a very classy way.
Q: Is this only x86? No graphics etc?
I uh, um, uh, that's a complicated answer but I think the general answer to your question is yes. The suits ... have pertained to x86 processors and platforms,
there's two parts to the agreement, one is antitrust, the other is patent cross-license, broad, covers "all productS"
let me put it this way... it is an important feature of our agreement ... that we have resolved ALL disputes. on the IP side, amd and intel have had patent peace with each other since 1976. design freedom to innovate, great contributors to patent portfolio... we have now the flexibility with rights under IP agreement for full use of foundries.
Q: is the cash being deployed towards reducing debt
you now understand why we were not more specific in yesterday's meeting on debt restructuring
Q: What happens to the cases around the world, what is your expectation
the regulatory investigations etc are conducted by sovereign governments ... so the regulators will do what they are
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Intel patents lawsuits"
"Here! Here! It's $1.25 billion! Just keep quiet about the antitrust thing, ok?"
Notice the EU is going after the money even after Intel and AMD settled.
Must be nice to extort 1.5 billion without having to make, invest, or risk anything.
EU fines are due immediately - Intel already paid that off in full.
because EU doesn't protect AMD business but fair play on the market that benefits consumers (competition, lower prices, etc..). Shady plays undermine that so Intel was going to be fined either way.
That will teach Intel to try and copy Microsoft's business model.
Screw you Intel! I'm always preferred paying less and getting more and that's why I always buy AMD.
Yeah, but you see, we need that money to keep the French farmers happy, with over 50% of EUs budget going to farmer support and all.
This way we can dump all the excess wheat/milk/whatever onto Africa looking like we care at all while killing off the little amount of local productivity and business they have, keeping them poor and unfeed without any local crops.
Though most of their problems will be their own and their governments. ("Guess they too need more liberate gun laws!" ...)
If Intel have abused their market position, it's a shame to see them "get away with it". I suppose if they *hadn't* abused their market position then it would seem a shame that they didn't get their day in court. That said, it seems pretty unlikely to me that any substantially sized company won't have been involved in dubious activity somewhere along the line, even assuming that there was no high-level directive to do this.
In the interests of honesty, I'll note that I have a few reasons for having a pro-Intel bias - but really I think that letting legitimate antitrust complaints lapse would be bad for both companies in the long run (although practical considerations may make it bad business sense for AMD to push the case). Look what's happened to Microsoft - they achieved a monopoly and they really have gone soft and become bureaucratic. If there's a case to answer, the regulators should press ahead, even if AMD needs to concentrate first and foremost on their operation as a business.
The Partnerchip? This shit has been going on since at least the early 80's.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
How likely would it be that this could be considered unlawful collusion?
Has the EU distributed the fine money to consumers yet? I suspect that the average EU consumer won't see any financial benefit from these antitrust actions.
This sort of bickering makes me like ARM even more.
Write a spec, let anyone build it. Done.
According to Newegg:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor $199.99
Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition Bloomfield 3.33GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor $999.99
So I'll grant you that Intel's flagship i7 is faster than AMD's flagship Phenom II, but the Phenom has a slightly LOWER TDP and is 1/5 of the cost of the i7. Is the i7 4-5 times faster?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ridiculous argument - nobody with any sense buys the extreme edition.
For those who bought AMD early enough, stock price jumped ~20% today. Not bad :-)
Don't forget that 1.25 billion represents a significant portion of AMD's capitalization and far surpasses the cumulated
earnings of the last few years.
No, like taxes, the Intel fines end up in the general revenue fund of the EU.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
Must be nice to extort 1.5 billion without having to make, invest, or risk anything.
Where 'extort' means 'fine for breaking competition law'
Informative my ass... Why not take something about the same speed as the x4 965... oh, they're about the same price.
But I think what the other poster was trying to say is that in the mainstream and low-end segments AMD is a much better value.
of illegal unrepentant monopoly abuse and all they get is a slap on the wrist?
Crime truly pays and i would encourage not only corporations but individuals to practice the same.
Let's all make this a world where bribery/extortion/underhanded/anti-competitive behavior is rewarded.
Micro$oft got away virtually scott free and now Inte£, flush with 10's of billions of dollars (it bribed De££ 6Billion just in 2000-2006) can afford to be "punished" for some loose change.
In the eyes of the public Inte£ is still an innovator and corporate good guy, even though they have their own "DOS aint done till Lotus won't run" compiler anti-competitive behavior (check out how many games/apps use the Inte£ compiler and how they "run better on Inte£". All those cheap "review" sites never bother to dig in and ask why does an app/game really run better... software optimization can make any cpu look like a king or a pauper.
Same story with $vidia. They control (illegally/unethically) yet you see so many apologists and defenders. It makes me sick.
It's in all our best interests to have actual, legal and fair competition. No bribery, no shenanigans, no underhanded deals, no anti-competitive behavior. But you see very few people opt for it. They see something shiny and lose all sense of things.
Sometimes i wonder if it's really worth being good (corporate or individual) because this world absolutely rewards the evil.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Well, Intel wouldn't be offering it for sale if it didn't think anyone would buy it. It seems like a valid point to me.
That's awfully nice of Intel to agree not to block them from OEM sales anymore, considering it was against the law and all.
I recently purchased a AMD Phenom II 705e, which has a 65 watts TDP and was about 10% cheaper than the E7600. These are quite different CPUs: the E7600 is two 3.0GHz cores with 3MB cache; whereas the 705e is three 2.5GHz cores with 7.5MB cache.
Hmm, I didn't notice that one. I would have given it very serious consideration, it does seem perhaps a better deal than the Intel.