Intel sued for Core 2 Duo patent infringement -- by the University of Wisconsin

Although Intel's mighty proud of the Core 2 Duo, it looks like the chip wasn't all home-grown -- a lawsuit filed today by the University of Wisconsin claims that the processor infringes on patented technology developed by one of its professors. Back in 1998, CS department chair Gurindar Sohi presented some of his developments relating to instruction level parallelism to Intel and offered to license them, but got nowhere -- yet the same tech is in the Core 2 Duo, according to the lawsuit. For its part, Intel says it's been talking to the Badgers for over a year now, and that it hasn't evaluated the complaint -- which it might want to do in short order, since UW's asking for the court to halt shipments of the Core 2 Duo in addition to monetary damages and legal fees.

[Thanks, Matt G.]

[sburko @ Feb 7th 2008 11:36AM]

Damn Badgers

[uhgotnegum @ Feb 7th 2008 11:41AM]

Thank you for reminding me of this!!!! http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

BADGER, BADGER, BADGER, MUUUSHHHHHROOOOM!!!!!


OOOOHH IT'S A SNAKE!

[sjdurfey @ Feb 7th 2008 1:03PM]

haha, i have no idea why that's funny, but i was cracking up!

[Twitchy @ Feb 7th 2008 3:16PM]

Great, one more way for higher education to get between me and my valuable gaming time.

[Royale @ Feb 7th 2008 3:29PM]

My kid (9 months) loves those badgers. Sometimes it's the only way to keep him still.

[Dorf @ Feb 7th 2008 11:39AM]

Except the Wisconsin design utilized cheese....

[Timerider @ Feb 8th 2008 2:06PM]

Your just jealous that we can make delicious processors and you make them out of sand.

[tom @ Feb 7th 2008 11:39AM]

C2D is copied off someone else? tsk tsk tsk...shame on you for the taking the speed crown!

Pay the royalty

[Brad @ Feb 7th 2008 11:42AM]

A good thing that can come out of this is that the money ( if UW wins) will goto to the school...thus helping to funding an educational instituion



nah...they will probably roll it up and smoke it...

[joe23521 @ Feb 7th 2008 12:32PM]

@Brad:

Actually, the money will just go to Bret Bielema and Bo Ryan's next pay raise.

[maveric101 @ Feb 7th 2008 9:03PM]

hmm... maybe Intel will roll out it's Nehalem processors sooner than expected...

[tweak @ Feb 7th 2008 11:41AM]

Fuck yeah badgers. Stick it to the man.

[joe23521 @ Feb 7th 2008 12:26PM]

Go Big Red!!

[mike @ Feb 7th 2008 11:52AM]

This question probably doesn't apply to this case in any way, but...

If this professor taught these techniques in his classroom without mentioning that it is proprietary/pattented, and one of his students takes this knowledge with him when he gets a job at Intel, does the professor have a case? I mean, the student paid tuition for this transfer of knowledge.

[ilh @ Feb 7th 2008 11:54AM]

At my uni any kind of software/idea we make whilst in education there becomes the property of the uni. Gay, but that's how it is and I suspect might be the case for your question.

[Ty @ Feb 7th 2008 12:21PM]

Yep. My senior design project in Engineering School is property of Georgia Tech :(

[who? @ Feb 7th 2008 12:41PM]

It's a good question, but I'm not sure it is easily answered. First off, if a student learned the process in class, that is not necessarily an opportunity to use the exact process when s/he gets to Intel, mainly because it is not there idea. Now if they take the knowledge and develop their own, unique process based on what s/he learned, then it could be ok. Keep in mind, patents are often about the process of how to do something, not what something is. This situation is actually worse because, according to the blog, Intel learned about the process from the professor and I believe damages can be doubled when you knowingly violate a patent.

As a side note, I'm not sure you can receive patents on software. I believe they are currently only covered under copyright.

[Student Driver @ Feb 7th 2008 12:43PM]

First, the University of Wisconsin (and I imagine others) Computer Science department is big on teaching concepts, rather than literal and/or specific technologies. For instance, while they are big in Java and RedHat Linux at first, the program overall strives for general language support and understand, and leads to general engineering knowledge to be applied anywhere.

Usually, when you see specific inventions and technologies coming out of a school that's from post-graduate work (sometimes with very skilled/respected under-graduates) that the university is working on. In addition, this can be tied in to someone's doctorate work, or in partnership with a corporation or government entity (such as the UofA's space science and optics labs). As these are the typical situations, Intellectual Property rights and borders are already established.

If the professor already worked on this with the university, patented it, and tried to license it then they deserve the money owed them as this sounds like (on the surface) a proper use of the patent system; they came up with something and tried to sell it. Since they've been in discussion with Intel for a year, it sounds like the talks have stalled and now the UofW wants to pressure Intel into some sort of decision.

[sully @ Feb 7th 2008 1:15PM]

I don't know how true it is, but there are a lot of legends of students getting IP rights from their senior design projects. As a chem e, I doubt I'll have to deal with this in college, as the most we do in senior design is design a process. It's a load of work, but all theoretical and on paper.

[jobu @ Feb 7th 2008 1:47PM]

"I mean, the student paid tuition for this transfer of knowledge." The student did pay for the transfer of knowledge. They did not, however, pay for a license to use the patented work.

[HB @ Feb 7th 2008 11:42AM]

woohoo on wisconsin!

[Taxman @ Feb 7th 2008 11:44AM]

F*** EM' BUCKY!

[steve @ Feb 7th 2008 11:45AM]

Intel will have to pony up a lot of money to UW for their stealing of the technology. Intel had a chance to license, and now they are going to pay for it.

On Wisconsin!

[Vesh @ Feb 7th 2008 11:52AM]

Or you mean the costs will be passed on to the end user.

[tom @ Feb 7th 2008 1:52PM]

They won't, AMD will keep them accountable =D

[Pip @ Feb 8th 2008 9:57AM]

Tom is spot on. This will put them in a bad position. They can't even think of putting the cost on the consumers, so they'll just need to eat the loss, and some heads will probably roll.

[kal326 @ Feb 7th 2008 11:50AM]

Great one more thing to possibly delay the Yorkies.... At this rate, the only Yorkie I'll be able to find, anytime soon for under, $1000 will require a leash.

[Anton @ Feb 7th 2008 11:51AM]

A bit late on the lawsuit, eh?

[Paul @ Feb 7th 2008 12:38PM]

It seems they tried less litigious methods and were rebuffed. It seems the lawsuit is just the next move in a long series of events.

[andy @ Feb 7th 2008 2:24PM]

Not if you consider that Intel admits to "negotiating" in bad faith for over a year.


Seriously, they're "talking" but haven't yet "evaluated the claim." How can you be talking to someone without having had a patent attorney take a look at the patent. Oh, that's right, because you were just jerking the Wisconsin guys around for a year.

[daedalus @ Feb 7th 2008 11:59AM]

SHUT UP COLLEGE

[Alex Padilla @ Feb 7th 2008 12:02PM]

you must be High School.

I say, if they're claims are valid, then more power to them. I do love my 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, it's great and kicks my 2.8GHz Pentium D's ass.

however, "University of Wisconsin Inside" doesn't sound as catchy as "Intel Inside"...oh well

[Natedog @ Feb 7th 2008 12:59PM]

And you must be Middle School, Alex. Learn some grammar.

[Dan @ Feb 7th 2008 2:21PM]

Your mom goes to college.

[Alex Padilla @ Feb 7th 2008 8:54PM]

@ natedog

focking relax, I noticed my spelling error when I submitted it but didn't find it worth it to correct it in another post.

[EnvyGeeks @ Feb 9th 2008 12:17AM]

Sirs, spelling is not grammar.

[Andy @ Feb 7th 2008 12:04PM]

Funny thing is, this type of stuff happens a lot. I worked at a different university in the late 90s and they now have a similar suit against another large hardware company. One of the professors/researchers came up with some new tech for hard drive data storage/transfer and tried to license it to some manufacturers. After being turned down, in 03ish the tech miraculously appeared in drives. The university promptly filed suit.

[Brent @ Feb 7th 2008 12:05PM]

Irony is.... C2Ds in the computer lab at UW.

[Andy @ Feb 7th 2008 12:05PM]

Thats the way it works. When you are an employee of the company/school (as a professor, or a student doing research and getting free tuition) the IP becomes property of the company.

[Zach @ Feb 7th 2008 12:08PM]

Yeah, that's my department and my university. Maybe when we win this lawsuit we can start using Quad cores instead. That will teach Intel for using such a ridiculously stupid name..."Core," seriously, what were they thinking.

Fuck 'em, Bucky.

[zargon @ Feb 7th 2008 12:09PM]

Those crazy cheese heads... maybe they should just drink some more beer.

[Corey @ Feb 7th 2008 12:13PM]

Ok, we will.

[SteveMB @ Feb 7th 2008 1:16PM]

Amen

[Kahuna310 @ Feb 7th 2008 12:14PM]

Even though the university owns the technology, the prof should get paid. At my university, any money from inventions done on campus gets split 50:50 after the university recovers legal fees. It's worth it. The university gives you the facilities and manpower to do whatever you want, they deserve some of the prize. If you invent something for Boeing or IBM, do you think they give 50% of the profits?

[The Truth @ Feb 7th 2008 1:51PM]

The prof does get paid.
He gets a nice large salary to do research and very little teaching.

[Iridium @ Feb 7th 2008 12:19PM]

What to do? Come up with great ideas in college to get good grades and then have the ideas ripped off or save them for later.

Companies love Universities. They can partner with them to get great ideas they barely pay anything for. IBM sponsored one of my student group projects, people within IBM went nuts and then sold the ideas to Samsung. Now Samsung is making devices based on our ideas and we get nothing, other than a vague mention buried in the R&D writeup.

[Marc @ Feb 7th 2008 12:22PM]

HA! What an embarrassment. First they try to beat us on cheese production and FAIL. Now they try to beat us on technology and FAIL. For shame California, for shame. Wisconsin inside! I love it! Go get em Bucky!

[joe23521 @ Feb 7th 2008 12:29PM]

If the Badgers win, will it help their next BCS computer rankings?

[whateverisme @ Feb 8th 2008 2:14PM]

Yes, generally a team's ranking improves when then win. ;-)

[Rand @ Feb 7th 2008 12:40PM]

And the fine citizens of Wisconsin should expect a nice check from the University of Wisconsin....since ultimately they footed the bill for the research right?