Rambus Wins Patent Case

Blowfishie writes "Rambus has won a major case they've been fighting since the late 90's. Rambus worked its technology into the standards for SDRAM and DDR data transfer, then waited for the major players (Hynix, Micron and Nanya) to be heavily committed before revealing that it had patents on the technology. 'At issue is whether the developer of a speedy new memory technology deserved to be paid for its inventions, or whether the company misled memory chip makers. "I think they (the jurors) misapprehended what the standards-setting organizations are about and the absolute need for good faith," said Jared Bobrow, an outside attorney for Micron. Wednesday's verdict comes after a judgment against Hynix in 2006 that resulted in a $133 million award to Rambus, Lavelle said, and potentially clears the way for Rambus to collect on that verdict.'"

Bad faith, but good tech

[BadAnalogyGuy]

For all its faults, Rambus is/was staffed with very smart people who were actively working on memory designs in an effort to create licensable blueprints. They weren't just sitting around grabbing at every obvious idea, but were actually trying to provide a service to hardware vendors.

They totally fucked themselves by becoming a pariah in the standards push, but their technology is real and substantial. Their big problem (aside from the obvious bad choice to torpedo the standards committee) was that they didn't actually produce their own RAM for a long time. This gave the impression that they were just another patent bottom feeder when in actuality they were bringing good technology to the table.

Re:April Fool's Day...

[dgatwood]

If I were working for one of those companies, the first thing I'd do is declare bankruptcy. If all of the three manufacturers being sued all declared bankruptcy, the industry would plunge into chaos and the legislature would suddenly be getting tens of thousands of phone calls from everybody from Dell to Apple calling for patent reform, a huge government bailout, and a law invalidating Rambus's patents.

As for me, I will never, as long as I live, purchase any product manufactured by Rambus or any of its subsidiaries, and as soon as the dust settles and the industry has time to move to a Rambus-patent-free memory technology, that permanent blacklisting will be expanded to any products that license any technology from Rambus or any of its subsidiaries. I strongly urge everyone else on Slashdot to do the same. Let's send a message with our pocketbooks that we will not tolerate patent extortion from a technology manufacturer. Let's drive Rambus out of business with the largest boycott of a company's products in the history of the planet. All it would take would be the wrath of geeks burying a single company to ensure that other companies think twice before adopting such sleazy, deplorable tactics.

Re:bad..

[Spy der Mann]

This is called patent troll..

Not quite. First of all, this is a hardware patent. Second, Rambus was an actual technology developer [slashdot.org]. Turns out that Rambus' competitors did price fixing [slashdot.org] to prevent Rambus memory tech from entering the market.

Now, I'm not saying the Rambus guys are poor victims [slashdot.org], IMO they're as guilty as the other companies, but I'm thinking that Intel and the others might be getting what they deserve. It's as if Rambus told them: you know the rules, and so do I [youtube.com] ;-)

Re:Fool me once...

[timeOday]

That could be the worst effect of this... undermining the standards bodies. Getting competitors to play nice is hard enough even when they aren't stabbing each other in the back. Now they're more likely to figure it's safer just to go their own proprietary ways, which would mean more expensive and incompatible gear for us.

Re:juries

[firefly4f4]

IANAL, but shouldn't this have been pretty easy to show for a jury, with just two questions, how they're either involved in deception or not?

1) Was Rambus involved in the standards process?

If not, then while there's an issue of if the patents should have been granted in the first place (and I don't agree with this, but think it's the case), I think they'd be in the clear as far as this particular jury would be concerned.... with the exception being if the patents were submitted AFTER the standard was published. However, there I'm not sure a would have have the power to say the patent itself shouldn't have been granted even though, by being a "standard" it shouldn't have (prior art).

However, if they were involved, then:

2) Were the patents in question granted or pending at the time the standard was being developed?

If yes, I'd say they did deliberately hide the fact that their patent(ed/pending) works were in the spec. If no, then by having worked on the spec they must have known those patents were already covered by the spec, and hence knew they'd be able to make a mint if they managed to get the patent after the fact... although that also calls into question the patent office for improper investigation.

Re:A joke or not and all other things aside

[vision864]

There are *NO* saints in that fight,Rambus patented tech that was agreed on in good faith. When the Dram Cartel saw what was going on they tied them up in court not for a legal victory but to force them out of the market. The whole damn thing can be measured in Felonies per second.