WARF files patent infringement lawsuit against Intel
With the Packer season being abruptly halted by the New York Giants several weeks ago, I suppose the folks at the University of Wisconsin at Madison needed something to do this winter – hence we’ve got ourselves a lawsuit against Intel Corporation (Sorry.. I really couldn’t help myself since I am a Giants fan!). The suit was actually brought forth by the folks at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Fund (WARF) on Wednesday for patent infringement by Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor.
According to this News.com posting, the suit appears to be targeting Intel’s Wide Dynamic Execution technology. It’s essentially a combination of data flow analysis, speculative execution, out of order execution, and of course, super scalar architecture. With this technology, an Intel Core 2 Duo can execute instructions in parallel – even if some instructions are dependent upon the results of other instructions. According to WARF, they tried to get Intel to license the technology back in 2001 but the company wasn’t interested at the time. It’ll be interesting to see if WARF can actually prove that the technology in use is a direct infringement upon their own patents – especially if Intel can prove that they’re technology is based on technology that they have had in place since the P6 architecture – which dates back quite some time.
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