by Anton Shilov
05/05/2003 | 12:14 PM
Stocks of the World’s Largest Casino, as some analysts now call Rambus Inc., did not drop on the news that the US Federal Trade Commission had filed another lawsuit against the company. The commission last week reiterated its desire to either destroy Rambus or to put it in a position when it is forced to become a part of a larger company that is more loyal towards the DRAM industry. This time FTC alleges Rambus of illegal monopolisation of key-technologies used in now-common SDRAM memory.
<%BANNER[article]%>Frankly speaking, there is nothing new in the accusations; FTC continues to tell us that Rambus joined JEDEC and then patented technologies discussed during the meetings violating the rules of the organisation. Presently FTC calls it as “fraud” and from now it also calls as “illegal monopolisation”. I am not sure if there is a huge difference between these two allegations, however, it is clear that FTC definitely wants to win one or two legal battles against Rambus in order to do something with the company that wants to charge the whole industry. Rambus denies all the accusations saying that it had never violated any JEDEC rules.
In case FTC looses the case about possible Rambus’ fraud, it may try to proof illegal monopolisation of the market by Rambus eventually. Maybe FTC is afraid of loosing the first case and now tries to think out another one? Well, no idea here, let us wait and see what happens in the course of next couple of months.