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From: spp@ucbvax.ARPA (Stephen P Pope)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: NEC V20 ---> 8088
Message-ID: <10406@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 18:48:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10406
Posted: Mon Sep 16 18:48:53 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 03:04:47 EDT
References: <1438@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 36

Gern,

    You are fairly confused on the issues of chip pirating.
It would be illegal for NEC to have used the copyrighted
mask set, or the same tooling that that Intel uses in some 
other form, to produce its "pirate" 8088's.  It would
be illegal for NEC to sell 8088's that were designed with
the use of stolen or proprietary information.  But it
has never been alleged that NEC has done any of these things.
What they have done is reproduce the 8088 starting from
its data-sheet, and other public-domain information, and
this is perfectly legal.  Of course as you pointed out
it doesn't work quite right and that is a valid complaint.
But it's not an illegal chip.
    AMD and other liscensed producers of 8088 chips use
mask sets obtained from Intel, and that is the reason
they need to be licensed.  They never designed the chip,
they only manufacture it, so far as I know.
    The fact that NEC 8088's don't behave the same as
intel's is some evidence that they probably didn't 
steal the design.
    As another example, do you think that the first outfit
to produce, say, a 64K RAM chip forever has the right
to enjoin others from doing the same?  Of course not!
Anybody who goes to the trouble to design such a 
device from its specifications, without violating
copyrights and proprietary arrangements, has the
right to produce it free and clear.  Microprocessors
are no different.
    As for the microcode-stealing issue, that is another
story.  

steve pope (ucbvax!spp)

disclaimer: I'm not an attorney, and even if I were,
I'd never admit to it on the net


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