In a blog post celebrating 40 years since the launch of the first x86 processor, Intel said that those emulating x86 are doing so without permission from the company, and it will enforce its patents.
Yesterday, Intel published a blog post celebrating the 40th birthday of the 8086, which was the first x86 processor. But after the company boasted about the innovations that it’s brought to the platform over the last four decades, it made what sounds like a veiled threat toward anyone emulating its technology without its permission.
It goes on to say that “Intel welcomes lawful competition”, but “we do not welcome unlawful infringement of our patents, and we fully expect other companies to continue to respect Intel’s intellectual property rights.”
While Microsoft and Qualcomm aren’t mentioned specifically by name, their Windows on ARM efforts are the most notable example of x86 emulation that’s happening right now. With the project, Microsoft plans to bring full desktop applications to PCs that use ARM processors.
What’s interesting is that if the statement is aimed at the two companies, as it appears to be, it means that Microsoft went so deep into developing the x86 emulation technology with Qualcomm without ever consulting Intel. It seems like quite the oversight if such a major part of Windows is built on top of proprietary technology from a third-party company.
Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet reached out to Intel to ask if the statement at Microsoft and Qualcomm, and received the following statement from Intel’s executive vice president and general counsel Steve Rodgers:
Last week, Microsoft announced its ‘Always Connected Windows 10 Mobile PCs’ at Computex, and that the first ones will come from ASUS, HP, and Lenovo. With products ready to come to market within months, and the original announcement being last year, it’s unclear why Intel would wait until now to say something, or why it would do so through a blog post, rather than taking action.
Microsoft and Qualcomm haven’t issued any statements regarding this.
