An innocent little patent awarded to Irvine, California-based Advanced Logic Research Inc could turn out to be a time-bomb: the patent covers ALR’s microprocessor upgrade technology, which makes it easier to upgrade old iAPX-86 machines to 80486 or Pentium processors, and the Wall Street Journal suggests that it could even claim royalties on the patent from Intel Corp, which has been pushing its OverDrive upgrade capability with its Vacancy commercials on television.
