Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[alan81]

Patents and trade secrets...
I can tell you that patents with titles like:
"method for controlling gate oxide thickness" net a company about zero, while patents with titles like:
"method for interface of a DRAM" can generate considerable revenue. It is almost impossible to tell if your competition is violating the first patent, unless you are given access to their production facilities, which is not going to happen.
In terms of detailed circuit patents, it is possible to tell, but takes a tremendous amount of work to find violations.
If you review Intel patent filings, you will find they have very few process patents, only a few critical circuit patents, but have lots of system level patents. Based on the business they are in, you can see they only patent a very small amount of their IP.

As golfbum pointed out, the process patents pretty much tell your competition how to do things, with no method of getting payment for it. Intel has nothing to "prove" by generating a large number of patent filings. Their goal is to generate revenue.
--Alan