If people who received written assurance from Intel that their hardware is 100% bug free can form a legal class, sure. I highly doubt there is even a single one such customer.
It depends on how they handle user compensation. Going by the FDIV precedent, they should typically replace all defective products for free, and they will be in the clear.
What I meant was that the presence of the bug itself is not a valid cause, for example you can't claim that due to the error you lost 1 trillion dollars via a software hack - even if it's true. If Intel can prove they acted ethically when disclosing the bug and that they replaced / compensated users up to the value of the CPU, they are in the clear.
I read that this bug goes back several years; "replacing all defective products for free" could be a massive expense, and assuming it includes current chips, there's also some lag time and engineering effort to get to the point where they could start doing so.
Presumably, by visiting an agreed service center in your western, sue-happy country, or sending the computer to the nearest one on your expense in the rest of the world. If the CPU is not replaceable or no longer in service, you would get a voucher for the lost value of the CPU/computer that is now 30% slower. Something like 10-20$ for anything older than 3 years, so most people won't bother. If Apple can do it, surely Intel will manage, but it will cost them in the billion order of magnitude, a non-negligible fraction of their yearly profit.
> They need some legal standing or the case can be dismissed out of hand.
Yes and no. Yes, Intel would get a chance to claim that the case should be dismissed out of hand. To do that, they have to prove that, even assuming all the claimed facts are true, the people suing still don't have a valid case. That's a high bar. It can be reached - there's a reason that preliminary summary judgment is a thing in court cases - but it takes a really flawed case to be dismissed in this way.
How flawed? SCO v. IBM was not completely dismissed on preliminary summary judgment, and that was the most flawed case I've ever seen.
> It may very well be a question of who has the better legal team.
Well, Intel can afford to hire the best. A huge class-action suit can sometimes attract the best to the other side as well, though. (There's not just one "best", so there's enough for both sides of the same court case.)
IANAL, but it looks to me like there's at least the potential for a valid court case. CPUs are (approximately) priced according to their ability to handle workloads; if they can't provide the advertised performance, they didn't deserve the price they sold for.
If people who received written assurance from Intel that their hardware is 100% bug free can form a legal class, sure. I highly doubt there is even a single one such customer.