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The Courts Government News Your Rights Online

Rambus Destroyed Evidence In Anti-trust Trial 170

Posted by timothy from the oh-no-it-was-an-accident dept.
Marasmus writes "CNN is reporting that memory-chip maker Rambus has been found guilty of destroying evidence which was 'critical' to the anti-trust case brought by the U.S. government. Interestingly, the Judge has denied the FTC's request to move on to the penalty phase of the trial. Destruction of evidence in an anti-trust case normally yields a forfeiture of trial, but Rambus 'will have the burden of proving its innocence" instead.'
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Rambus Destroyed Evidence In Anti-trust Trial More

Rambus Destroyed Evidence In Anti-trust Trial

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  • They didn't destroy the documents... (Score:5, Funny)

    by wondafucka ( 621502 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:15PM (#5444495) Homepage Journal
    they just kept them in memory...and turned the power off.
    • Seeing that you got First Post and it was modded +5 with alacrity, you might want to try buying lottery tickets or drinking expired milk. This is your lucky day mon!

      • Re:They didn't destroy the documents... (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Someone mod up the parent for using "alacrity" in a sentence.
        • "Alacrity" is a cool word. I remember it being used in a 50 year old book about Chess. The author was explaining how, as a beginner Chess player, you wanted to probably play 1.e4 and then just leave it there for a while. You wouldn't want to keep moving the pawn around.

          But it goes on to say this is not set in stone: "Of course if Black moves its Queen to d5, the pawn will capture her with alacrity!"
          • For those amoung us, like myself, who didn't know what alacrity means, but can't be bothered to look it up

            Alacrity - A cheerful readiness, willingness, or promptitude; joyous activity; briskness; sprightliness; as, the soldiers advanced with alacrity to meet the enemy.

    • Re:None of this matters. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Let's see... there were THREE OR FOUR motions filed today against Rambus by the FTC... only ONE of them stuck.

      John Danforth sez:

      "All the court said was that two years before the investigation started, we weren't careful about preserving evidence, There is no destruction of evidence that has happened."

      Rambus wasn't found GUILTY of anything. Just that the potential "evidence" may have been lost, and in absence of it, Rambus will have to find another way to defend themselves. Should be easy for their legal team.

      The most important was the DEFAULT JUDGEMENT the FTC was seeking. Denied.

      If you ask me, "Adverse assumptions" means "Presumed guilty", but that's another matter. Adverse does NOT mean *GUILTY AS CHARGED* as the sensationalistic slashdot article hints towards.

      So let's see... how's Rambus doing these days with all this litigation?

      Rambus sues infineon...

      Infineon beats Rambus in court on SDRAM patents after judge payne is convinced by Infineon's lawyers to remove their only defense from being admissible as evidence of their claims defining a "bus" (covered by the Markman ruling, which was in Rambus' favor).

      Court finds Rambus guilty of FRAUD on SDRAM because they have no evidence to support otherwise. Rambus couldn't define a bus according to how their own 1990 patent stated, so they're robbed.

      The FTC files its case against Rambus based on this FRAUD VERDICT.

      Infineon files motion to make this fraud ruling relevant to DDR so they don't have to pay royalties there either. Payne denies the request since Rambus wasn't part of JEDEC when DDR was being developed, much less ratified as a standard. Infineon tried to show that SDRAM and DDR are so similar that it should cover both, but the judge wasn't convinced based on the evidence they presented. Motion denied.

      An appeal on the fraud verdict is filed and the CAFC gets the case. THEY CLEAR Rambus 100% based on the fact that Infineon was guilty of some tomfoolery of their own, and TWO OTHER COMPANIES DID THE SAME THING (IBM and HP) while in JEDEC, actively stating they WILL NOT reveal their patents that are relevant to SDRAM. They also bring up the fact that JEDEC's notetaking and policy making sucks, since their own policies were so broad they were unenforcable.

      So now, you have Rambus.. a company not guilty of fraud, and free to sue.

      The FTC all of a sudden changes their entire case around to shift towards "willful document destruction" as plan B. All of a sudden, a nebulous suspicion about a 180 person company (of which ONLY FOUR are lawyers, btw) comes to light, making them look like the "next Enron", causing their stock price to drop. EVEN THOUGH RAMBUS WON TODAY BY THWARTING THE BIGGEST PROBLEM THEY HAD: The default judgement.

      So now, what's Rambus left with? Well, even if they DID shred documents, they can only hold it against 'em for SDRAM if they're found guilty. DDR has NOT been in dispute EVER except for the brief time Infineon tried to weasel their way out of it on the SDRAM ticket.

      Rambus filed for a summary judgement on DDR, which is ALL they need to win this case. They have the CAFC on their side (WHICH HAS JURISDICTION over the ALJ), which says "Hey, we're not guilty of fraud, and a higher court than you said so."

      There is NO WAY the FTC will get anything major out of this. If you ask me, it's frivolous and a waste of taxpayer dollars to even investigate.

  • Why not penalty phase? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06NO@SPAMemail.com> on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:17PM (#5444515)
    The article doesn't explain what reasoning the judge gave for not switching right to the penalty phase, but requiring the less-onerous "proving their innoncence". This seems unusual.

    • Re:Why not penalty phase? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara,hudson&barbara-hudson,com> on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:28PM (#5444627) Journal
      Actually, this is a harsher penalty. They have to justify themselves in a public forum, no ifs, no ands, no buts.

      Do you know how hard it is to prove your innocence? Think about it - if someone accuses you of a crime you didn't commit, and you have to prove your innocence, can you? In most cases, not likely. That's why the usual standard in criminal cases is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".

      Of course, civil cases are different - then it's the "preponderance of the probabilities".

      • The usual standard in criminal cases is that the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt: i.e., they must prove you are guilty. You are not obliged to prove you are innocent -- something which, really, is virtually impossible to do: how do you prove a negative ("I didn't do it!")?
        • Sure, the prosecution has the burden of proof. But let's face it, if you CAN prove you didn't do something, (that's what an alabi is) your job is much easier as a defendant.

          That's how you prove a negative :-)

        • something which, really, is virtually impossible to do: how do you prove a negative ("I didn't do it!")?

          The same way most defendants do it. They present an alibi. Preferably something along the lines of "I couldn't have done it, because at the time of the murder I was singing the national anthem at the Superbowl."

          • They present an alibi

            Sorry for the delayed response ;-)

            Yes, but even this cannot categorically prove innocence; at best, it means the alleged perpetrator wasn't physically present at the time of the commission of the crime. This is obviously different from demonstrating innocence of a crime. It may well be that the circumstances of a crime make it exceedingly unlikely that the perpetrator was not present, but it doesn't make it impossible: for instance, he may have hired someone else to do the dirty work.

        • This is a civil case, not a criminal one. Preponderance of evidence suffices, and you can be compelled to provide evidence that adversely affects your case.
      • will the prosecution be able to use their destruction of potentially relevant documents as evidence against them?

        And summary judgement/straight to penalty is more harsh then a trial where they still might be able to prevail despite their actions.

      • You mean like whether or not you have weapons of mass destruction, right? :)
      • No it isn't a harsher penalty. Think about it : either you are immediately found guilty, or you have a small chance to at least prove you were innocent. I'll take the small chance every time. It may be difficult, but it is far less harsh than being immediately found guilty, which is what normally happens in these cases.

        Dean G.

      • Actually, this is a harsher penalty. They have to justify themselves in a public forum, no ifs, no ands, no buts.

        Not quite. From the article:

        Destruction of evidence in an anti-trust case normally yields a forfeiture of trial

        I would think this is the harsher penalty. The judge is giving them an extra chance to avoid a guilty verdict.

      • Actually, this is a harsher penalty. They have to justify themselves in a public forum, no ifs, no ands, no buts.

        This isn't a penalty, it's still a trial. A penalty would involve fines, freezing of assets, confiscation of property, etc.

        Do you know how hard it is to prove your innocence? Think about it - if someone accuses you of a crime you didn't commit, and you have to prove your innocence, can you? In most cases, not likely.

        So does this make RAMBUS part of the "axis of evil(tm)"?
    • I'm not an expert on the law, but I beleive that trials such as this are often allowed to continue so that there is less grounds for an appeal after the verdict. Have to let them have their day in court, after all.

  • So what is there document retention policy? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by atomray ( 202327 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:22PM (#5444569) Homepage
    From the article: "Rambus has maintained that its document destruction was part of the company's regular document retention policy."

    So what exactly is their policy? Does the government regulate this, or do individual companies simply decide a policy? Anderson tried to use this as a defense as well, during the Enron scandal, if I remember correctly. A policy of "don't retain potentially incriminating documents" wouldn't surprise me, considering Rambus' alleged past behaviour. Are these policies about as useful as corporate codes of conduct that companies such as Nike have? If they don't already, should the FTC set down guidelines?
    • Does the government regulate this, or do individual companies simply decide a policy?

      Well similar to you or I, they must retain documents that the IRS or SEC (ok not you or I relative to the SEC) would find "meaningful". Consider this, do you save your credit card statements, phone bills? If so, for how long. You typically don't need these things for "official" purposes (business use not withstanding). Would your shredding of these documents be construed as you eliminating potentially incriminating purchases or conversations. If you're not under investigation, then no. But if you are, then they could be. This is of course a VERY grey area, what is relevant to what situation? Definitely hard to nail down. Of course the govt could always enforce a "100% document retention policy" ;)
    • So what is there document retention policy?

      To periodically destroy documents relating to developments they patented and then sued others for infringing. It'd be cool if they could actually destroy those patents too :-)

    • It's company policy to destoy documents when getting sued -- duh.

    • Retention policies are determined by companies (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:44PM (#5444760)
      Each company determines it's retention policy, with advice from lawyers. These policies are intended to do many things. Two big ones are 1) reducing costs associated with storing old files and 2) limiting costs associated with litigation. While it is obvious companies want to hide guilt, there are other costs involved in litigation - e.g., the man-hours to search through old files, inventory them, copy them for other lawyers, etc.

      HOWEVER, regardless of a company's retention policy, it is illegal to destroy documents related to a government investigation once the company is aware an investigation will occur or is likely to occur. This is what got Arther Anderson in trouble, they knew an investigation was coming and then destroyed documents. This is also why a written policy is important, and that it be strictly observed. That way in court it is easy to defend the statement we destroy all documents older than X months automatically. We did not destroy them because an investigation was coming.

      • That depends on the type of business you are involved in. I know we are legally obliged to keep (for instance) email logs for a number of years. Likewise tapes recorded from certain phonelines, and of course paper records of transactions etc. In the financial sector, the rules (and penalties for breaking them) have recently become a lot tougher!
    • So what exactly is their policy? Does the government regulate this, or do individual companies simply decide a policy?

      There are certain kinds of documents that must retained for the SEC or IRS, but beyond that you can normally have pretty much any policy you want. But if you destroy documents after you are notified that there is an investigation, that is a crime. In other words, when notified of an investigation you must immediately suspend document destruction.

      will have the burden of proving its innocence

      Some people are acting like this is some kind of huge gift. It's not. Normally they would be presumed innocent unless the government could prove their guilt. Now they are presumed guilty unless they can prove their innocence. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in that position!

      Also note that the full quote is:

      the company will have the burden of proving its innocence on some allegations

      The article doesn't explain whether that means that they are now considered guilty on other allegations, or whether the evidence destroyed only relates to some of the allegations and so trial should proceed normally on other allegations. My guess is the latter.
    • IANAL, but from my experience at work I know that you can't be found 'guilty' of destroying evidence if the documents in question were in a class that was slated to be destroyed on some regular basis, i.e. after some amount of time had passed or after the project they were associated with had ended. Businesses regularly do this since keeping every shred of paper ever generated would be pretty difficult - imagine if a steel manufacturer had to keep records for how many pounds of material they sold in 1872.

      There are exceptions, however - destroying something after a lawsuit has been brought is a big one, tax records, SEC filings, etc are others. If Rambus is shown to have gotten rid of the paperwork in a non-standard manner after hearing about the lawsuit, they're in some pretty hot legal water. However if the steel company mentioned earlier got a subpoena for their 1872 steel sales, and pointed out that they only keep that kind of record for 15 years, no problem.

  • Not much to the article... (Score:3, Informative)

    by $$$$$exyGal ( 638164 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:23PM (#5444576) Homepage Journal
    Rambus has maintained that its document destruction was part of the company's regular document retention policy.

    Some people say they illegally destroyed the documents, and Rambus said they legally destroyed the documents. Other than that, the article is useless.

  • maybe if the patent office was smart enough to ensure anti-trust cases like this wouldn't happen in the first place...

  • My favorite line (Score:5, Funny)

    by andyring ( 100627 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:27PM (#5444618) Homepage
    Rambus has maintained that its document destruction was part of the company's regular document retention policy.

    Hmmm, I wonder if Enron could get away with saying the same thing at trial. "I'm sorry, your honor, but we always destroy our evidence, it's our normal business practice."


    • Businesses are required by law to maintain certain documents, eg tax records. If your employer fails to supply you with a W2 or other record of how much your salary was in the previous year, they can't simply claim "It's our normal business practice not to keep payroll documentation."
    • AFAIK, Enron did maintain (at least for a time) that there was nothing abnormal or illegal about the destruction of documents it performed.

  • This really makes me wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:28PM (#5444629) Homepage
    ...The MS anti-trust and now RAMBUS (which I had no idea was anyone's 'darling')?

    Has the government prosecutors lost their teeth or is this just fuel to the idea that this was an arrangement that was bought and paid for? This does not sound like justice to me... justice for all that follows the rules and all that? This is very disturbing.

  • Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:29PM (#5444642)
    The credibility of American business went into the shitter ever since Enron was caught for it's sleazy practices. I predict in the next five or more years there will a shakedown on sleazy business. At least, let's hope. Part of the western recession is due to the discovery of unethical business tactics. America's business credibility relies on the way the courts handle corporations that choose sleazy tactics.
    • Well so much for that credibility. While Enron's employees all go without pensions, Ken Lay and his goons have build multimillion dollar mansions in Florida, and I don't see any courts doing anything about it.

      American business has been sleazy and unethical for quite some time, but now it's spread to the largest companies and become too great to ignore. But with a "business-friendly" administration that will do as little as possible to hold corporate officers accountable for their actions and maintain an SEC that enforces above-board behavior, I don't see the situation changing at all in the near future.

      Even worse, now I'm reading about Bush's faith and "God talk". What the hell is his god telling him? That greed is good, and people who exploit others should be supported? I've heard some strange stuff from religious people, but nothing like this.
      • I've heard some strange stuff from religious people, but nothing like this.

        The medieval Vatican could probably teach the White House a thing or two, they also had experience of operating in the Middle East.
    • I keep wondering how 'sleazy' American businesses are somehow different from all the 'sleazy' non-American businesses out there. Is it because they get caught or because we have rules for them to break? You know there are some seriously sleazy businesses out there in the rest of the world... I think it's just our 15 minutes of fame.

      This doesn't mean I don't think those people are pigs and deserve to be thrown in the poorhouse, just that Americans aren't the only sleaze-bags in the world.

  • pattern recognition (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mac Degger ( 576336 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:30PM (#5444653) Journal
    So first they enter into a consortium, and don't show they have certain patents, and now they don't show evidence? I sense a pattern there, but I can't seem to find one for the judges decision.

  • RAMBUS files for new patent .... (Score:5, Funny)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:38PM (#5444705)
    Abstract - A process by which documents, which encompasses the plurality of both physical and "virtual" assembledges of characters or images, are converted into a non usable format either via the physical process of shredding, disassembly via the use of prehensile appendages, use of the 'delete' or 'rm' utilities, editing with Microsoft Word, or any other method that would make said document unreadable to any law enforcement agency.
    • You'll never get this patent. With all of the temp files that Word leaves strewn across your hard drive, and all of the "deleted" information that Word retains within a document, available to be retrieved, this would have to be considered to be a non-functioning process.

      Unless you were Ellen Feiss and you were writing a paper on your dad's PC and it goes berzerk and the paper just disappears. And then you have to write it over again and it's not as good.

  • Mistakes happen (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Have a heart. The Shredder and the Fax were made by the same company, and the secretary accidently mistook one for the other.

    Tom

  • Yeah, this is what I said before... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AlphaSys ( 613947 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:41PM (#5444731)
    OK, so it's your regular retention policy to shred documents that incriminate you... big surprise. And when did the shredding begin? As soon as the IP claim was filed. Very sleazy.

  • 'will have the burden of proving its innocence"
    == "sponsor" a few more senators to help smooth things out... Funny how incredibly rich corporations are treated slightly differently to normal people, huh?
    • == "sponsor" a few more senators to help smooth things out... Funny how incredibly rich corporations are treated slightly differently to normal people, huh?

      Are you suggesting Congress is going to pass retroactive legislation that will make Rambus' actions legal?
      • I'm saying some corporate sponsorship may cause certain parties to press for a more liberal definition of exactly what constitutes "proof of innocence" in this case.
        • I'm saying some corporate sponsorship may cause certain parties to press for a more liberal definition of exactly what constitutes "proof of innocence" in this case.

          And which parties are you saying may press whom? Senators pressing judges? Yeah, judges love it when the legislature tells them how to do their jobs.
    • Funny how incredibly rich corporations are treated slightly differently to normal people, huh?

      Oh enough antiPatriotic bs, off to guantanamo w/ you.

  • sad (Score:2)

    by tongue ( 30814 )
    Destruction of evidence in an anti-trust case normally yields a forfeiture of trial,

    its sad to me that there's a standard procedure for this kind of violation, though after the last couple of years, not at all surprising.

  • How to read that pretty graph (Score:5, Insightful)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:48PM (#5444794) Homepage
    The article includes a graph [cnn.com] that shows a steep drop-off of their stock price.

    The very first thing you do is to look at the numbers on the axes of the graph. The vertical axis of the graph is price of one stock share in dollars, but the graph goes from $15.43 down to $13.86, so that steep drop-off wasn't as steep as the graph makes it look. If you plot the same numbers on a graph that goes from $16 down to $0, it's not nearly as dramatic. The stock price fell by about 10.6%, while the graph makes it look more like 100%.

    To learn more about tricky graphs and other misleading charts, read How to Lie with Statistics [powells.com], a truly great and fun book.

    steveha
    • One of the first things they said in economics class was to make your graph start at zero to prevent this kind of thing. Since econ is required for MBAs even more than EEs (me) and companies always use this practice, it has been a valuable lesson to me. Look at the day charts for DJIA or NASD, they always appear spectacular with one of 4 descriptions:
      1) Big Gain
      2) Big Loss
      3) Early gain followed by a retreat
      4) Early decline and then recovery
      Always a news-worthy day based on the chart because it covers the full range - never mind that we scaled it that way on purpose.
    • Here's a nice linear [yahoo.com] graph of the Rambus stock price.

  • A New Age of Trusts? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dukeofshadows ( 607689 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:53PM (#5444832) Journal
    Does anyone else think that maybe the US gov't is encouraging the big-name companies based in the US to play by a different set of rules in order to maintain market share? Note that Worldcom had tremendous overseas assets, as did Enron. Rambus had one of the largest market shares in its field and an original patent. Microsoft is still on 90(+)% of consumer computers worldwide, and AOL has not had to abide by its promises to open up the IM market under the rules established for the merger with Time-Warner. Granted, all the aforementioned companies are heavy political donators, but it seems that the US government of the last 25 years (since the Chrysler bailout in the late 70s) has encouraged a trust mentality among larger companies that allows them several get-out-of-jail-free cards as long as they stay profitable and maintain market share. I'd like to hear y'alls opinions/comments on this...

    • Re:A New Age of Trusts? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sure!

      Rambus' biggest stumbling block is the #2 manufacturer of SDRAM - the company none other than the hugely unprofitable Micron (MU).

      At least ONE person [congress.org] got through to Miss You-Know-Who.

      There's no way the FTC can win this case. All document shredding aside, the worst that can happen to Rambus is their loss of rights to SDRAM. Since RMBS wasn't part of JEDEC in ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM for DDR, they'll be granted their own summary judgement dismissing charges of monopolistic practices on that technology.

      Infineon tried getting Judge Payne to extend Rambus' fraud allegation to DDR, and he refused because Rambus wasn't a PART of JEDEC when they developed DDR.

      The CAFC in turn reversed the ENTIRE rambus conviction in Rambus' favor and gave them the right to sue again, now on their OWN terms (reinstated markman, etc).

      There's no way Rambus can lose this one, folks. The most they'll get is a slap on the wrist and maybe stripped rights for SDRAM. And let's face it - SDRAM isn't even RELEVANT anymore.

    • Re:A New Age of Trusts? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda AT etoyoc DOT com> on Thursday March 06, 2003 @12:09AM (#5446759) Homepage Journal
      I find it humerous how a few million to keep Amtrak running is too expensive, while a few billion to prop up the airline industry is essential. The reason rail seems so damn expensive has more to do with government subsidizing airport construction and highways.

      Lets face it people, a train isn't glamerous technology, but it is a lot cheaper to keep running per mile than any other transportation technology out there. If you go to India or China, you don't see interstates or large fancy airports outside of the main cities. You do have rail going to any place with a post office, though.

      In my opinion, the only reason cars, gas, and air travel is so important in this country has everything to do with bad habits and short thinking. The stock guy on the radio said it best the other day with the quote: "... of course that was back when long term meant years, not minutes or hours ... "

      • Lets face it people, a train isn't glamerous technology, but it is a lot cheaper to keep running per mile than any other transportation technology out there. If you go to India or China, you don't see interstates or large fancy airports outside of the main cities. You do have rail going to any place with a post office, though.

        Trains can be glamerous technology. Japan and France being the obvious examples.
      • Presumably, the airline industry is getting a loan, and even then, it can be difficult to get if you cannot show that you will be able to show profits soon. In adition, to get bailed out by the government, you have to be such a large company that your bankruptcy will cause severe financial impact to the economy.

        Now, a bit off-topic... I wouldn't ride a train in any case. I have literally dozens of friends who work, or have worked for a railroad at one time or another, and all will openly say that trains are the single most dangerous form of tranportation.

        Not only is it easy to damage the tracks on which they run, but they are so heavy that they couldn't stop even if they were able to notice the damage.

        There are surprisingly low standards for tracks, and the bridges they are layed upon.

        There has always been a problem with engineers either being drunk, becomming disabled, or falling asleep, and causing serious accidents.

        Then there's always the problem that your featherweight passenger train is sharing the same path (with very little room to spare) with mosterous freight trains so heavy, and having such inertia, that they have been known to bury the entire train in hard dirt and/or solid rock when they come off the rails. If a freight train and a passenger train were to collide, those aboard the freight train would likely feel no more than a slight bump as the passenger train turns into a huge metal pancake.

        Trains are a good (read economical) way to transfer freight, but you are foolish (or consider you life less valuable than the cost to use another form of transportation) if you travel by train.
        • Well, in the UK the airlines pay no fuel tax. That is a direct government subsidy to keep the cost of air travel down.

          As for your point about trains being the single most dangerous form of transport, think again. You'll probably find that a motorcycle is the most dangerous form of transport, and that driving a car is far more likely to get you killed than taking a train. I feel far more vulnerable overtaking 40 tonne lorries in my car than travelling on a high speed train.
          • driving a car is far more likely to get you killed than taking a train.
            Well, I suppose if you look at the overall statistics, it might appear that way (that's the same way they try to prove the safety of airlines)... But for a fair comparison, you would need to compare ONLY the interstate car traffic with trains, since trains don't do the equivalent to city driving.

            In addition, I'm not going to even grant that statistics are in favor of train travel. I would need to see the actual statistics first.

            In addition, car crash statistics are just that... statistics. Just because hundreds of people driving in snow and ice (or driving on dangerous roads, etc.) get into accidents, it changes the statistics, but that doesn't change the fact that I will never even be injured in a car accident.

            It's actually quite interesting, if you look at several generations of my family tree, you will see that none of thousands of my relatives have ever been in any actual accidents. They drive more than the majority of people, and are spread throughout the US, yet continue to defy statistics.

            I feel far more vulnerable overtaking 40 tonne lorries in my car than travelling on a high speed train.

            That's nice to know, but I don't feel the same. There is such a thing as defensive driving. If you can drive defensively, your life is not at the mercy of other drivers on the road, no matter how big their vehicle is.

            Besides, I still find it hard to believe that cars could even statistically be safer. Two passenger trains callided at around 5MPH and about 5 people were killed. Trains are monsters, which is something people don't grasp (if they did, noone would even risk getting in a train's way). The inertia from the train in which you are riding is so great that a collision into the ground or another train wouldn't do more than scratch the train, but it would crush every person onboard. Forget about seatbelts, your body would be crushed by the weight of the inertia alone.
            • You are right that a train's inertia means that most rail collisions are nasty. I'm just arguing that the deaths per passenger mile are lower for trains in the UK than cars. I agree with one of your points though, freight should be taken off the trunk road system and carried by rail. All those big lorries scare me, especially when it's raining, spray everywhere and 2 out of three lanes clogged with house-sized boxes bowling along at 60mph.
              • I'm just arguing that the deaths per passenger mile are lower for trains in the UK than cars.

                I would simply have to see some reputable statistics comparing interstate car travel (ie. NOT including city driving, since trains don't do anything equivalent) verses passenger trains to believe that claim.
    • You just made my friend list! I think your point is quite valid. For whatever reason (actually, the reason is becuase the rich people rule the pooor people) the rules are "different" when youre a big company. The excuse being -- think of all the people who will be out of work if we punish a large coproration!
    • It's not the last 25 years, it's the last fifteen or so. Leveraged buyouts in the 80's, the FCC consolidation rules in the nineties, and lax antitrust enforcement under the last four administrations. Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and Shrub are all equally guilty.

      Chrysler wasn't the first. Chrysler was bailed out because they had something like 500,000 employees at the time. The Democrats, who were at that point in control (Carter was president), were not about to send that many people -- mostly blue collar -- out of work, regardless of whether Chrysler deserved to die or not (and it did -- build quality at the time of Lee Iaccoca's arrival was so bad that dealers expected to substantively rebuild each car as it came in from the factory!).

      Chrysler also wasn't the first large company to ask for bailout from the federal government.

      But you may be happy to know that the Republicans gave Chrysler lots of shit afterwards. Even so, Chrysler did pay back the loan way early.

    • Absolutely.

  • Shady... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by riclewis ( 617546 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:57PM (#5444872)
    Within the industry, Rambus has a rep for shady dealings, and this would appear to serve as another case in point. Anytime a company finds itself compared with Enron...

    It's seems obvious that they did wrong in adjusting their patents during and after the JEDEC process, without disclosing their patent knowledge or intents to the body at large. I can just hear the conversation: "Let's sit in on this standards body, write down their ideas, quielty patent them, wait for them to be implemented, hire lots of lawyers, and start suing everybody!!"

    If they had been (or are) allowed to get away with their behavior in regards to that standards body, it undermines the ability of all companies to cooperatively design and create standards in good faith.

  • Patent? (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheKubrix ( 585297 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @06:58PM (#5444889) Homepage
    Maybe rambus can patent destroying evidence, oh wait Enron and Worldcome beat them to it.....

  • Rambus Ink. doesn't make chips. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Liquor ( 189040 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @07:09PM (#5445001) Homepage
    memory-chip maker Rambus
    Not quite. Rambus Ink. (to steal a phrase from el Reg. [theregister.co.uk]), doesn't actually make any chips themselves. They make their money by licensing their patents for their serial RDRAM design, and by e\x\t\o\r\t\i\o\n\ licensing (questionably acquired) patents applied to synchronous DRAM.

  • Too paladium isn't around yet... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @07:12PM (#5445036) Journal
    ...if it were here they could of just timebombed or permanently deleted the files and no evidence would of ever been found.

    Palladium has an interest to not only corporate America but also microsoft since they can destroy any document at will and have the encrypted filesystem hide any evidence that it even existed. The doj can never bother them again.

  • Nothing says... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @07:24PM (#5445129)
    Nothing says "We're innocent" like destroying evidence

  • Well, well. (Score:4, Funny)

    by ultramk ( 470198 ) <{ultramk} {at} {pacbell.net}> on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @07:47PM (#5445298)
    They're Ram-Busssssted!

  • Broader Implications? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Josuah ( 26407 ) on Wednesday March 05, 2003 @07:54PM (#5445331) Homepage
    I think this decision has some broader implications which the people commenting have so far missed. This means there might be some legal requirement by other companies to keep information which may prove necessary for purposes not yet known.

    For example, could it be argued that ISPs must keep complete logs of user traffic in the event of legal action taken against a user? Or that companies must retain versions of software builds for X years to prove they didn't "steal" intellectual property in building their system?

    Granted, that is a big difference from keeping documents which were used in the process of conducting business (e.g. patents, SEC filings, shareholder meetings). Is this the first ruling of its kind? (I'm guessing no.) Any legal experts have any insight into where else this sort of ruling can be applied in a broader sense?
  • Rambus should do a merger with Microsoft. That way, they will be more powerful in performing anti-trust shit, and they can together pretend not to understand the prosecution's questions.

    I apologise for the delay in making this intelligent post... When I attempted to post it, Slashdot said:

    Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

    It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment.
    .By the time I add all this crap to the post, I'm sure that the aforementioned two minutes will have elapsed successfully.

  • Three Words (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Seanasy ( 21730 )
    Corporate Death Penalty

    I wish there was such a thing. I can only hope more municipalities will follow the lead of Porter Townhip [reclaimdemocracy.org].

    • Well, I don't think that this is flamebait, but I don't agree either. To wind up a corporation would likely cause problems to many innocent employees. You could argue that fining them does too, but maybe there should be some way to ensure that the cost of fines should be borne directly by the shareholders. They are the ones with real power over the boardroom, so maybe it's best to prod them when the company breaks the law.

  • spokesperson went on... (Score:3, Funny)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @05:14AM (#5447749)
    Rambus has maintained that its document destruction was part of the company's regular document retention policy.

    Rambus went on to explain that they had a standing policy to destroy all incriminating evidence when it comes to their attention. "It is part of our lawsuit-based business model and corporate culture," the spokesperson said.

  • Just what we need, a memory company that can't remember stuff it was supposed to hold on to....

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