Quote Originally Posted by Dresdenboy View Post
But in case of AMD I think we can take patents in a different way. Intel, IBM and other large companies have a lot of people working on such designs and try to cover many ideas to fill their IP pool. AMD is not so much IP oriented (just protecting itself somehow) because it can't afford to pay for tons of potentially useless patents and waste a lot of the design teams' time for developing "fun architectures" and patenting them. However, if someone developed an idea with some future potential, they might patent it just in case. That likely happens often during the early design stages.
Actually, when one really studies the field, AMD has a very impressive patent portfolio ... it's not quantity, it's quality. I guess that is pretty much what you said.

Jack