The judge, among other reasons, found the failure to produce the press release significant and granted a new trial for AMD.
My recollection is that there were actually 2 missing documents although the second was also publicly available as well.
The second trial in 1994 resulted in a decision that AMD had a license to copy Intel’s microprocessor microcode.
My recollection is that the jury decided that Intel failed to make their case. The result is the same but I don't recall the jury actually deciding AMD had a license. BWDIK?
Intel filed a law suit and challenged AMD’s use of ICE microcode in AMD’s 486. A Court decision in Jan 1995 (or perhaps late 1994) held that AMD had no license for the ICE microcode that AMD had copied and embedded in every 386 and 486.
Don't forget to mention that Jerry had assured everyone that there was no Intel ICE microcode in the AMD486. He was proven in a Court of Law to be a liar and it cost AMD $42 million IIRC.
Most disturbing was how INTEL deceived the Court and jury during an INTEL lawsuit against AMD on the issue of 286 microcode. It was about the interpretation of the term "microcomputer" in an INTEL-AMD licensing agreement. INTEL altered the date of some crucial internal document and removed some incriminating text from it. The jury was deceived, and issued a verdict against AMD.
It was by some pure luck that AMD found the original INTEL document and the judge ordered a new trial four months after the jury verdict. With the untampered evidence, AMD won. But AMD lost precious many months marketing its own 486 processors due to an injunction issued previously as a result of INTEL's lawsuit.
Tampering with evidence is conveniently forgotten about. The courts think such actions are quite vile.
n February 1982, AMD signed a contract with Intel, becoming a licensed second-source manufacturer of 8086 and 8088 processors. IBM wanted to use the Intel 8088 in its IBM PC, but IBM's policy at the time was to require at least two sources for its chips. AMD later produced the 80286, or 286, under the same arrangement, but Intel cancelled the agreement in 1986, and refused to hand over technical details of the i386 part. The growing popularity of the PC clone market meant Intel could produce CPUs on its own terms, rather than IBM's. AMD challenged this decision, and subsequently won under arbitration. A long legal dispute followed, ending in 1991 when the Supreme Court of California sided with AMD and forced Intel to pay over $1 billion in compensation for violation of contract. Subsequent legal disputes centered on whether AMD had legal rights to use derivatives of Intel's microcode. Rulings were made in both directions. In the face of uncertainty, AMD was forced to develop "clean room" versions of Intel code. In this fashion, one engineering team described the function of the code, and a second team without access to the source code itself had to develop microcode that performed the same functionality.
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