X-bit labs

Rambus Obtained Patents Completely Legally, Court Finds.

Category: Memory

by Anton Shilov

[ 03/26/2008 | 11:04 PM ]

If it is impossible to win on the market and popularize RDRAM and XDR in computing applications, outside the world of video game consoles, then Rambus seems to be quite successful in courtrooms.

Rambus, a memory technology licensing company, said on Wednesday that that a jury of the U.S. District Court in San Jose in the case involving Hynix Semiconductor, Micron Technologies and Nanya Technology Corp. has found in favor of Rambus meaning that the court recognized legitimacy or Rambus’ patents. This may help Rambus to overturn the decision of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission which found Rambus guilty of monopolizing memory market.

Rambus claims it owns patents on key-technologies used in modern dynamic random access memory that is deployed in every single computer sold. The company is trying to force all makers of DRAM to pay royalties to Rambus for every single SDRAM, DDR SDRAM and DDR2 SDRAM chip sold. However, the FTC believes that Rambus withheld information that would have been highly material to the standard-setting process within JEDEC back in the nineties.

The jury of the U.S. District Court in San Jose determined that Rambus acted properly while a member of the standard-setting organization JEDEC during its participating in the early 1990s, finding that the memory manufacturers did not meet their burden of proving antitrust and fraud claims. This verdict should complete the case involving Hynix. Hynix was found by a previous jury in April 2006 to infringe a variety of Rambus patents. In that phase of trial, Rambus was awarded $133.6 million in damages.

“This ruling should put to rest a series of ongoing allegations Rambus has endured for many years. Our business is to license our revolutionary technology to the industry for fair compensation. We are pleased to have this decision behind us as we continue to engage with the industry to deliver compelling products to the market,” said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus.

It should be noted that the U.S. FTC also imposed limits of maximum royalties Rambus may demand from manufacturers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which substantially trims the company’s future revenues.

Micron Technology said that it strongly believes that the evidence entered at the trial proves that Rambus violated antitrust laws and committed fraud, and Micron plans to appeal the outcome. Micron officials also believe that the jury’s decision is inconsistent with previous decisions by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the European Commission (EC).

“Micron believes that Rambus has engaged in a pattern of deception, destruction of evidence, false testimony and other improper activities designed to mislead and to extract unjust patent licensing fees and damages. We will continue to vigorously advance our claims that Rambus has engaged in a variety of illegal activities designed to injure Micron,” said Rod Lewis, Micron’s vice president of legal affairs and general counsel.