Legal minefield
Yesterday AMD revealed the latest chapter in its legal saga with Intel. According to an SEC filing, Intel has given AMD 60 days to address correct an alleged breach in the cross licence agreement between the two companies or have its rights and licenses under the agreement terminated.
You can read AMD's initial response in the original piece, but we were also able to speak to Michael Silverman from AMD's US PR operation, to get further clarification.
We started by asking why AMD thinks Intel is taking this latest action. "AMD's Asset Smart strategy was a game-changing move for our industry," said Silverman. "It allows us to become more focused on product and platform innovation while continuing to have access to leading-edge process technology and manufacturing capabilities. This, combined with the growing global antitrust scrutiny Intel is facing, represents a serious threat to their business."
Perhaps more important than its motives is what Intel intends to do if its demands aren't met. We asked what AMD thinks Intel could do. "We really can't speculate on this," said Silverman. "The patent cross-license agreement allows AMD and Intel to share IP for x86 processing technology. If each Company were to terminate the other's rights then it would be a patent infringement situation. This is not where we are at this point in time."
This is the area where things get a tad complicated. The cross license isn't simply permission to manufacture x86 CPUs granted by Intel to AMD upon payment of a fee. It's a whole bunch of individual pieces of intellectual property, some owned by AMD, that the two companies share under the agreement.
