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.'"

Comments

Re:Only $1.25 Billion?

[Paeva]

I imagine that AMD has quite a bit to gain from the cross-licensing provision. In fact, they both do. I wouldn't be surprised if they're both worried about competition from mutual rivals such as ARM. This could be a big win for both in that regard.

What AMD needs to do - and quickly

[haruchai]

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.

Re:Only $1.25 Billion?

[Interoperable]

Possibly; however, if it ever came down to an all-out litigious patent war, AMD may well have come out on top thanks to holding the rights to the x86-64 instruction set. It's not clear that AMD gets any real benefit other than getting to put the whole dispute behind them. I suspect that the real advantage that AMD gets out of this is the admission from Intel that they were engaging in illegal business practices. Intel has agreed to stop blocking AMD from OEM sales and will probably honor it considering that they've just admitted to bad behavior.

It looks to me like AMD thinks that they can compete based on their products despite the disadvantage that Intel has put them in through illegal means. I just hope that it means we get to see some chips from AMD that once again provide a much better performance/cost ratio than the Intel chips.

Now only if they would license x86 and x86-64

[Lord Byron Eee PC]

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.

Re:DOJ?

[Attila Dimedici]

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?

The answers to your questions are in order: Yes and Yes.
If the DOJ thinks that Intel has done something worthy of an antitrust suit they can go after them (and the DOJ has been investigating Intel, so they still may). However, a non government entity can also bring an antitrust suit (although they have to demonstrate that they are in some way directly impacted by this behavior).

Re:Only $1.25 Billion?

[hattig]

Only recently AMD was clearing some debts for 30 cents on the dollar - i.e., the banks wanted money so bad that they allowed AMD to pay back one third of the amount they were willing to clear. AMD didn't have much spare money though, so they didn't clear much.

Imagine if AMD has another such offer on the table from their banks - they could clear far far more than the money they got from Intel. Getting the money now could have an overall net benefit greater than letting such a deal expire and getting a bit more from Intel in a couple of years. Never mind the interest payments they'll save paying them off now rather than in the future, even if there is no such deal.

I think putting everything behind them, getting freedom to manufacture as they like, and having a level playing field with the OEMs (sadly at a time when AMD's offerings aren't the shiniest) is more important to them.

Re:Only $1.25 Billion?

[Locutus]

good point, I don't know what AMDs profit margins are but if they are 20%, this $1.25B would be worth $6.25B in revenue.

I thought the 5 year term was a rather short period for this kind of business where it can take that long to bring a new design from drawing board to production. In a way, I hope it doesn't give either Intel nor AMD any fire power against ARM. I'd like to finally see another hardware platform enter the desktop segment first. ie, I'd like to see ARM get a foothold before they really see viable competition. They are doing quite well in the handset segment and are due to enter the netbook segment this fall. Success there will open the door to move up the chain into the laptop segment by this time in 2011 via multi-core systems.

LoB