[HN Gopher] AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent
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AMD Zen microarchitecture and Intel's Ocean Cove patent
Author : Parseus
Score : 350 points
Date : 2022-04-06 14:18 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| xpuente wrote:
| https://twitter.com/KarbinC/status/1511715859789717510?s=20&...
| dgarrett wrote:
| That's pretty standard text in tech patent.
|
| What exactly would it mean to file a patent "as a joke?"
| xpuente wrote:
| No. Those figures are pretty "standard". Neither AMD or Intel
| have "invented" an OOO processor. Those figures mean nothing.
| Are the standard "big" boxes in any modern processor. The key
| details are inside.
|
| E.g., https://uspto.report/patent/grant/10,282,296
| thayne wrote:
| But it was accepted?
|
| It wouldn't be the first time a patent for something absurd was
| granted.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| It can't be worse than patenting laser as cat exercise tool.
| This is not a joke.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| It doesn't work that way.
|
| It's one thing to cite it as prior art, but if they are listing
| it as an example embodiment of their invention then the patent
| is invalid.
|
| The idea of filing a patent application as a "joke" is
| nonsense.
| sabas123 wrote:
| Why would one ever do this as a requirement for patentability is
| that it doesn't exist as prior art?
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Because they're not patenting the stuff in the figures.
|
| This is the equivalent of plagiarizing the "related literature"
| section of a paper - lazy, in bad taste, but need not
| invalidate the actual contributions/claims made.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| ...I think the actual patent is on moving the cache snooping into
| the interconnect?
|
| I think all of the figures presented are part of Intel's claim
| that any processor that implements cache snooping in the
| interconnect are subject to this patent.
| monocasa wrote:
| Sorta. Cache snooping has been part of the interconnect for
| years (it arguably _is_ the interconnect), but this is about
| snooping cache line zeroing instructions without having to go
| out to memory as far as I understand it. So if a line is shared
| in two caches, it can be zeroed in both without getting the
| DRAM controller or even L3 involved.
| WithinReason wrote:
| It seems to me the Intel patent is using the AMD designs as
| examples, not something that's actually patented.
| sp332 wrote:
| The tweets only show illustrations, not the text of the patent.
| So that's pretty plausible.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| It is not pretty plausible. It is fact. The claims are
| strictly about cache. It barely even mentions the
| architecture except when relevant.
| jsnell wrote:
| Remember the advice of "How to read a patent in 60 seconds" [0].
| In this case there are two very short independent claims (1 and
| 3), all the way at the last page. They both seem to just be
| talking of some specifics on cache coherency.
|
| [0] https://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a-
| patent...
| notacoward wrote:
| While this might be true from a legal standpoint, even using a
| competitor's presentation for the description seems a bit lazy,
| and getting caught at it is quite embarrassing. It implies that
| nobody at Intel can describe a modern processor very well.
| CalChris wrote:
| Intel is citing AMD as prior art. It isn't lazy. It's
| necessary background.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| It's definitely lazy that they didn't create their own
| description, but how does it follow from this that they
| can't?
| jrk wrote:
| Patents are generally not written by engineers. They are
| written by patent attorneys / outside consultants. The
| engineers have a few conversations with the attorneys, and
| share technical material (in this case, something specific
| about cache coherence). The attorneys/consultants then
| generate a hundred pages of patent-ese scaffolding.
|
| The plagiarized content:
|
| 1. Is not what is being patented here.
|
| 2. Is not created by Intel engineers (or likely even Intel
| employees). They're busy designing chips.
| ncmncm wrote:
| If it's published, it is prior art.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| They are not trying to patent what's shown in the
| figures, those are just given as background information.
| A patent for a screwdriver will most certainly also
| describe screws, regardless of whether screws are prior
| art.
|
| Patentability is solely a matter of the claims made at
| the end. Those claims will of course be interpreted in
| the context set out by the method description, but it is
| entirely normal for a patent to describe the state of the
| art before discussing a novel method (about which actual
| claims are then made).
|
| (IANAL)
| temac wrote:
| It's still blatant copyright infringement at least.
| jjnoakes wrote:
| IANAL but I would have thought that referencing material
| for prior art would have fallen under fair use.
| monocasa wrote:
| Yeah, to me it just implies they don't want to actually
| leak any confidential information about their architecture
| since those details aren't really relevant to the patent
| (which is about snooping cache line zeroing in a cleaner
| way), so they just described their competitors overall
| uarch. Stealing lines from an anandtech article is a line
| to far though IMO.
| sprayk wrote:
| Ian Cutress (discussed elsewhere in these comments for also
| having his description of a CPU copied in the patent)
| suspects it's an intern[0]
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1511716678199132173
| zeusk wrote:
| With proper citation, what's the issue with an article
| being quoted?
| [deleted]
| josaka wrote:
| It's a common tactic in patents in my experience. You're not
| going to sue yourself. So you describe your invention in the
| context in which a competitor would use it. Of course, this
| would typically be coupled with a disclosure to the examiner
| that the thing describing the context is in the prior art.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Engineers don't write the text of patents, patent attorneys
| do. And for the kind of boilerplate in a patent like
| "describe a modern processor", this text and images are
| actually quite likely to itself be heavily copy-pasted from
| previous applications.
|
| Honestly, I would be more surprised if any engineer (intern
| or otherwise) at Intel ever noticed that the images came from
| an AMD presentation, let alone actively participated in
| copying the images from said source.
| notacoward wrote:
| As the inventor on twenty-something patents, I think you're
| understating how much input engineers have. Yes, the _bulk_
| of the work is done by patent attorneys, mostly translating
| from pure technical jargon into that weird mixture of
| jargon and legalese that patents are written in ( "...of
| the one or several..." and "...such as but not limited
| to..." and all that rot). However, for a patent of any
| complexity this often involves multiple rounds of back-and-
| forth with engineers to clarify and ensure correctness. In
| fact, I'd argue that any engineer who _isn 't_ involved in
| the writing process is failing to be sufficiently diligent
| or act in good faith when they sign the part about the
| patent accurately reflecting the invention.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > It implies that nobody at Intel can describe a modern
| processor very well.
|
| This seems like a bit of a stretch, given that Intel had a
| lead in CPU power for years and is still quite close to AMD.
| wtallis wrote:
| Designing a modern CPU architecture and describing one to a
| non-expert audience are very different skills.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Nuance: the solution to all things ever.
|
| I probably wouldn't have spotted this.
| Stevvo wrote:
| It looks suspicious because they reproduced the diagrams using
| what looks like a fucking typewriter.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Well... AMD can just cite their presentation as prior art, and it
| will be struck down. If anything, Intel was foolish to waste
| money on bored lawyers.
| paulmd wrote:
| Not how it works, actually. The system changed in 2013 and now
| whoever is first to _file_ gets the patent, even if someone
| else can demonstrate prior art.
|
| https://www.justia.com/intellectual-property/patents/first-t...
|
| AMD should have filed their own patents before talking about it
| publicly - that's how the game is now played.
|
| If you don't - it's now possible for someone else to file a
| patent on your own invention.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They can, but if it is based on industrial espionage,
| outright theft or plagiarism then that would definitely be a
| reason for them to lose the patent.
| nullc wrote:
| > Not how it works, actually. The system changed in 2013 and
| now whoever is first to file gets the patent, even if someone
| else can demonstrate prior art.
|
| This is not true, and it's a really damaging
| misrepresentation.
|
| First to file deals with interference between parallel
| applications, it doesn't change prior art based on
| publication.
|
| If two parties show up claiming patents on the same thing
| based on unpublished work, under the prior rules the party
| that was willing to fabricate the earliest date of invention
| won, under current rules the first to file wins.
|
| The misinformation you're spreading is particularly
| pernicious because the change increased the incentives for
| publishing your work early and often (to establish prior art
| ASAP)-- but the misinterpretation implies you should avoid
| publishing at all costs (to avoid a third party dishonestly
| patenting your publications).
| eightysixfour wrote:
| This is not true - prior art is still a test for striking
| down a patent in court, it is just not taken into account
| when two entities are competing to file the same patent at
| the same time.
| physicsguy wrote:
| They can only do it if it was not publicly disclosed. You
| cannot patent something which has been kept a trade secret.
| matt123456789 wrote:
| I don't understand what you mean. Does AMD's public
| disclosure of the microarchitecture prevent them from filing
| prior art?
| bogwog wrote:
| Yeah that comment is confusingly worded. I'm not a lawyer,
| but I do know that there is no explicit relationship
| between patent-ability and something being a trade secret.
| The important thing is just that patent applications are
| public, so once you file, your "secrets" are no longer
| secret.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| This. The whole idea of a patent is that companies share
| the details of the invention in the patent in exchange
| for a temporary monopoly on the idea.
| mojomark wrote:
| I think it's actually the opposite. In the US, the
| regulations changed several years ago from "First to Invent"
| (which is ambiguous) to "First to File" (which is pretty
| clear). In any event, I think you can only claim something as
| prior art if it's in the public domain. So, if you're very
| shady/greedy/lack an ethical backbone, and you get your hands
| on a private brief that isn't protected intellectual
| property, technically you can file that patent. I assume the
| owner could try to prove theft if they can determine how the
| IP was leaked and stolen intently.
| isanengineer wrote:
| Those AMD presentations are publicly available though. It
| looks like hot chips is a tech conference, and those AMD
| presentations were published as part of HC 28. I'll follow up
| with a link if I can find one, but I think it's pretty clear
| they are not in any way trade secrets.
| rob74 wrote:
| That's the way it _should_ work, at least. But I have a nagging
| feeling that Intel wouldn 't have done this so brazenly if
| (with the correct amount of lawyers and friendly judges) it
| wouldn't have seen a chance of the patent being upheld. Then
| again, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately
| explained by stupidity", so, who knows?!
| cogman10 wrote:
| IDK about intel, but quiet a few companies in their sphere
| offer employees bonuses for patents.
|
| It would not surprise me in the least if this was something
| some employee did to get a pay bump.
| rob74 wrote:
| I was thinking about that too - kudos to them if they
| pulled this off, but I hope they're not with the company
| anymore...
| TD-Linux wrote:
| Strictly speaking, only the claims matter, and so the text if
| those would need to be read and used to determine whether it
| can be invalidated due to prior art. The claims have very
| little to do with the diagrams supplied, rather they are
| about a way to compress cache coherency transfers if the line
| is all zeros (kind of like LPDDR has, in a way).
|
| That said, copying so many of a competitors' slides into
| figures is still stupid as it is highly unlikely to give a
| judge a great first impression.
| tyrfing wrote:
| The presentation was cited as prior art by Intel.
| bejelentkezni wrote:
| Haven't AMD and Intel had to share all their patents with each
| other for the past 20 years anyway? I remember some agreement
| coming out of the ashes of the amd64 debacle. And the patent text
| doesn't seem to have anything to do with the images.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| Only for x86 up until that point in time.
| snarfy wrote:
| That's how the US patent system works now.
|
| "The first inventor to file (FITF) provision of the America
| Invents Act transitions the U.S. to a first-inventor-to-file
| system from a first-to-invent system and became effective on
| March 16, 2013"
|
| https://www.uspto.gov/patents/first-inventor-file-fitf-resou...
| nullc wrote:
| That isn't what first to file means. First to file doesn't
| change AMD's publication from being prior art. You cannot
| create a valid patent by filing patents on other people's
| publications.
| gruez wrote:
| To be clear, first-to-file just means that in the event that
| the patent is granted, it's awarded to the person who filed
| first instead of the "actual" inventor. However, the patent can
| still be invalidated for prior art. The net effect of this is
| that AMD lost their ability to patent their invention by not
| filing first.
| ordu wrote:
| _> The net effect of this is that AMD lost their ability to
| patent their invention by not filing first._
|
| It can explain Intel's move to file the patent, which seems
| stupid at a first glance.
|
| Anti-Hanlon Razor: never attribute to a stupidity anything
| that was done by an intelligent entity.
| r00fus wrote:
| Perhaps known as Gray's Law:
|
| "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
| indistinguishable from malice."
|
| In particular this interpretation [1] may be best
| applicable
|
| "In other words: If you find someone acting so stupid that
| you can't believe she's doing it without the slightest
| chance of knowing that it's stupid, then she might act out
| of malice."
|
| [1] https://agiletrail.com/2011/12/20/hanlons-razor-
| comfort-in-t...
| temac wrote:
| You seem to think AMD has no patent on Ryzen. Don't worry,
| they have. Hopefully not containing loads of diagrams from
| Intel :D
| rrss wrote:
| something I've wondered for a while:
|
| Suppose someone invents something and uses it for their
| products, but never publishes anything about the invention,
| and then someone else (years later) independently develops
| the same thing and gets a patent that covers the first
| invention.
|
| Is the first person now infringing the patent, or can the
| fact they were doing it first (even though there is no
| published info to serve as prior art) give some rights to
| keep using it?
|
| (I understand any responses are not legal advice and I should
| ask a lawyer, etc, etc)
| pkilgore wrote:
| Relevant statute:
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/273
|
| Real answer though is "it depends", so ask a lawyer about
| specific facts.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| If first person has proof through dated notebooks,
| schematics, or internal documents they would likely be
| fine. However, second person may still have valid patent to
| assert elsewhere if there was never anything qualifying as
| public disclosure by first entity. Particularly under
| current doctrine.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| IANAL. This is my current understanding. If I'm wrong, feel
| free to correct.
|
| Using it in a product counts as "public disclosure". If
| you've shipped it, that's a public disclosure for patent
| purposes.
|
| But it's more complicated than that, because you can file
| for a patent on something within one year _after_ the first
| public disclosure. That also means that you can file within
| one year after _someone else_ publicly discloses something,
| if you lack morals and decency.
|
| So if person A develops something and starts shipping it,
| and person B files more than one year after the first
| shipment, then the device is now "prior art" that
| invalidates the patent. Person A faces a legal fight, but
| they shouldn't be infringing, because the patent should be
| invalid.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Just to be clear, in the US you must be an inventor to
| file. You can't take someone else's invention, once
| publicly disclosed, and then patent that within the one
| year period. But if two people have same invention the
| first to file usually has precedence.
|
| Of course in practice there are thousands and thousands
| of trash patents but technically those are the rules.
| lazide wrote:
| 'It depends' - but generally the first person is now
| infringing.
| mox1 wrote:
| Perhaps this was the entire point of Intel's work here???
| Worst case scenario for Intel they block AMD from patenting
| (and allowing Intel to use it).
| gruez wrote:
| Presumably if AMD hasn't patented it by now, they weren't
| ever going to patent it. CPUs take years to develop, so by
| the time something shows up in marketing slides (ie.
| release is imminent in a few months) it would have been
| years since the idea was first conceived.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| And first to file doesn't mean first to file with the USPTO.
|
| If you have a great idea for air-conditioned socks, you file
| your initial notes/work with your patent attorney, and that
| is sufficient (general hand-waving about officer of the court
| and so on.)
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| At first glance this doesn't look like an exaggeration. It's
| basically a 1-to-1 rip off when you place the images side by
| side. Even the labels within the diagram are copied directly.
| dboreham wrote:
| USPTO will actually search for this kind of thing (assuming the
| situation is as-described, which I suspect is not assured).
| Source: this happened to me -- I wrote an internal doc describing
| a new product feature. That doc was used both our product
| documentation team has the basis for user documentation; and by
| our patent team as the basis for a patent application. When the
| patent was reviewed, the examiner found the user doc on the
| internet and rejected the application due to prior art. We had to
| prove to the USPTO that both were derived from an older doc (by
| finding the older doc with timestamp and sending it to them with
| associated legal knobs and whistles).
| ledoge wrote:
| Those slides aren't the only thing they copied:
| https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1511718827083669508
| dmatech wrote:
| So they cited Ian's 2016 article (which contained the AMD
| diagrams), then basically rendered those same diagrams in black
| and white in the patent. Pretty lazy.
| pkilgore wrote:
| You never use StackOverflow or similar?
| Sparkyte wrote:
| A lot of people use StackOverflow but people blindly
| copying StackOverflow is just as dumb. When I use it, I use
| it to understand the problem. I then write my own logic
| understanding the issues wrapped around the similar error.
| But some solutions are too simple to not be similar.
| Qub3d wrote:
| Obviously most devs will answer yes to this question.
| However, I don't think the implied conclusion (software
| devs copy each other, so the legal apparatus applied to
| software is okay doing so, too) is a valid one.
|
| For one, this is _hardware_.
|
| And second, even if this was software, that just reinforces
| the farce that is software patents -- another reason to add
| to the list of why patents on software shouldn't be a
| thing.
| curiousgal wrote:
| monocasa wrote:
| It's literally quotes from an article he wrote about Zen for
| Anandtech cribbed in the patent.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| If you don't believe data presented by the guy who was editor
| for Anandtech for how many years, that's on you.
| gruez wrote:
| To be fair not everyone knows who @IanCutress is. The
| profile description of "Consultant, Chief Analyst,
| Influencer." doesn't really indicate he's a subject matter
| expert.
| rahimiali wrote:
| It doesn't matter who these people are. If you've seen
| patents before, you can cause from the screenshots how
| similar the diagrams are to the sources.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Books are published in batches of 'n' characters called
| sentences. Really, Twitter is just another medium.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| These diagrams could practically describe any processor, they are
| not even x86 specific. The fact that the layout of the figures is
| similar is kind of suspicious but I would guess they just come
| from the same decades-old book (or patent). They do reuse these
| type of quasi-standard figures quite often in order to churn out
| patents faster and faster. You'll find the actual new content
| (probably minuscule) somewhere in the claims. The patent system
| is just that ridiculous.
| loeg wrote:
| The specific numbers also match, but I agree that the diagrams
| are fairly generic.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| Definitely a lawsuit is going to come of this. I'm not even
| talking the blatent copy of the presentation but the blatent
| patenting of memory on interposer. This is basically what AMD's
| 2016 patent encompases for much of Ryzen's design architecture
| especially with HBM.
|
| Now I think where Intel might be in the right is that they will
| claim improvement on AMD's patent and design. But it will be a
| stretch considering they are using AMD's presentation. Which
| obviously in court it will incredibly hard for Intel to prove no
| wrong doing.
|
| NAL but you have to check your patents before submitting them.
| Intel went full patent troll.
| TomVDB wrote:
| The "NAL" statement wasn't necessary: it was totally obvious
| the moment you wrote "definitely."
|
| There's a 99.999% certainty that this non-issue will NOT result
| in a lawsuit.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| Gonna NAL anytime it comes to such subjects. ;)
|
| Amazon has a full team of patent lawyers on retainer just to
| submit a patent.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| > Amazon has a full team of patent lawyers on retainer just
| to submit a patent.
|
| So does any larger tech company, no?
| Aisen8010 wrote:
| Unfortunately the author chose to show his arguments in the
| Twitter. The subject is interesting, but I have a hard time
| following the discussion there.
| thayne wrote:
| So... Would the patent claim be a copyright infringement of AMDs
| presentation?
| cogman10 wrote:
| AMD could invalidate it as prior art pretty easily.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| How so? The claims have very little to do with the diagrams.
| They are only there as an example processor for the claims
| being presented. The claims are specifically about cache.
| More specifically clearing/invalidation. What better way to
| prevent the competition from implementing something similar
| than using the competitions architecture as the base to show
| how it could be implemented? It is Intel's prior art against
| AMD.
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| As prior art. You cannot patent things which are not your
| invention and a prior knowledge. Would be hard to proof it
| is your invention if you use knowledge from your main
| competitor in the patent application
| meragrin_ wrote:
| They are not trying to patent anything other than their
| own work. Their work is something which can be added to
| certain processors(AMD's included). Why not base the
| example on a competitor's processor so there is less of a
| chance someone could argue it is reliant on Intel's
| processor architecture?
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