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Patents

DRAM Industry vs RAMBUS 77

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-say-they-wrestle-for-it dept.
Greyfox writes: "The DRAM manufacturers are considering filing an anti-trust complaint against RAMBUS in an attempt to get their SDRAM patents declared unenforceable. "
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DRAM Industry vs RAMBUS More

DRAM Industry vs RAMBUS

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  • Patents are only good GOOD if... (Score:3)

    by Stiletto ( 12066 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @04:46PM (#944335)
    ...they have an overall benefit to society. There's nothing in the constitution that says a company has a right to make money. Patent and copyright law is supposed to further the arts and sciences, presumably not for a single corporation, but for society. A patent that fails to do this is not in the spirit of the law. Remember the ability to patent something is a privilege granted by the law, and not some god-given right... Because of this it should be subject to the law.
  • A new day, a new way to butcher a word! One would think it wouldn't be too difficult to actually copy the word from the article correctly!

    --
    Let's not all suck at the same time please

  • Re:We need details (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do peruse IBM technical releases - they had this in mainframe memory 20 years ago - so it won't be on web/computer/online. TI should also have ammo. remember to look in foreign countries too for prior art.
  • I'm thinking that in this case patent law is somewhat like copyright law. It's okay to use it and garner the protection for the work you've done, but not to use the protection of the law in anti-competitive ways.

  • I think RAMBUS is going to try to gouge cutomers on SDRAM. Trust me, if they could get prices of RDRAM down to $120 they would, but they can't, its just too hard to make and too complicated. The yields are terrible and they have to build an entire memory module just to test it. So if even one chip is bad they lose all the chips on the module. It just costs WAY more to make RDRAM and the customer pays for it. There is that whole royalty thing, but its not a $700 difference.
  • Maybe it would be a good idea if the patent office weren't only paid according to number of patents approved, but would also have to pay (a lot) for each approved patent that is later thrown out in court. That might make them a bit more cautious in approving stupid patents.

    At least, they should pay all legal costs involving such lawsuits.
  • No, it is just Japanese companies not wanting to go into a US court. They always do this. Thanks god US legal system is not precedent based.

  • Think "Microsoft", they'we probably spent billions on RD an still, they haven't invented a single thing yet.

    If someone knows of a single technology that was born in MS's RD labs please follow up to this.

    Ahh, yes I know, it's awfully easy to write this off as a Troll, truth hurts, doesn't it ?

    --
    Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
  • Clearly good arguments can be made for, and I believe, against any patent system. It just seems to me the lesser burden to have none.

    [the specific case of pharmaceutical research, I think it is very clear that the patent system has sped up the development of new, useful, drugs]
    That cannot be proven either.

    Innovation would still happen, people would still invent/discover, courts would be less clogged. More would happen at the university level.

    What is clear is that we get more of what we reward. This system rewards bureaucratic law manipulations and thats more of what we are getting
  • The problem that you are alluding to with such patents is that they are not the original intent of the patent law, IMHO, IANAL. The idea of patent law is to protect developement time. If you agree with patents at all, I don't see how you could argue that Edison, for example, shouldn't receive a patent for this new fangled light bulb he just invented. He spent a large amount of time discovering how to do it, and finally discovered a working mechanism. However, if I find a way to create a light bulb using a different, non-derived technique, my way is also patentable and non-infringing.

    Contrast that with some of the patents that we've been seeing, that are basically (at least as they are portrayed in media) ideas. OneClick shopping is an idea that someone had, and Amazon implemented it. That idea is not an invention (although it may be considered an innovation), although a particular non-obvious implementation might be (cookies is the obvious implementation).

    This doesn't mean that software patent don't have a use, by the way. Algorithms are implementations of an idea. However, that idea is not an invention, it is just an idea.

    The difficulty that we are currently having, as I see it, is the notion of derivation. If I implement the same idea, the default seems to be that it is a derivation. The courts have not yet discovered where they wish to draw the [fuzzy] line here, and hence the problem. I cannot think of any other case in which the idea -> implementation -> production time has been so small as it is in software, so the distinction may never have been grasped by the courts, so this error in distinction may never have come up before.

    My concern is what effect will this have in the long term. The question is not this year or the next, but 20, 50, or 100 years from now. All of the currently `obvious' patents will have expired, but will we have an entirely new set of `obvious' patents to deal with?

  • My patent attorneys are Townsend and Townsend & Crew LLP, Palo Alto. After a phone call, they inform me that competitive grading of employees has been based on the number of processed applications for several years, with heavy weighting to approved patents processed (approvals, after all, lead to more fees). Advancement tracks on the GS scale have been accelerated for people who perform on this measurement.

    I believe if you do a news search of NYT/sfgate about patent law, you'll find a number of articles that refer to this factor in the accelerated ease of obtaining patents.

  • Yet another sweeping patent. (Score:5)

    by ca1v1n ( 135902 ) <snook.guanotronic@com> on Monday July 10, 2000 @04:56PM (#944346)
    My watch has two patents engraved in the back of it, and there is surely plenty more patented technology inside. I'm fairly sure that there's nothing particularly revolutionary about this watch, it's just a matter of Timex protecting its engineering efforts. What RAMBUS is doing is not a matter of protecting a specific feat of engineering, but trying to control an entire class of technologies. That's not how patent law is supposed to work. It's supposed to keep someone from taking something apart and make copies and undersell the first maker who sunk so much into R&D. Somehow I suspect that the other memory makers, who are making items that get the same task done (store and retrieve high-speed volatile memory) but in fairly different ways (different chipsets, even) are not making a direct ripoff of RAMBUS technology. While it's true that they may be operating on a principle that RAMBUS is also using, this doesn't mean that general technique should be patentable and enforcable. It just means a specific implementation of it should.

    My car probably has a couple hundred, if not thousand patents. Still, my neighbors drive a car made by a different company, and neither of these companies has sued the other any time in recent history.
  • And naturally one would also think that people would choose the better product or at least one that costs less.

  • Re:I guess I don't understand this... (Score:5)

    by longword ( 2293 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @05:00PM (#944348)
    Read the story and the background. RAMBUS are claiming pretty damned wide patents on anything vaguely approaching SDRAM technology. They were part of the JEDEC standards organization when SDRAM was being standardized. According to the rules of that organization, companies are required to disclose any patent interests they have in a technology that's before the organization. They failed to do so. They allowed the standard to progress and become all-pervasive. Then they popped up exclaiming "Oh, look what I've just found in my back pocket!"

    The other way to look at it is RAMBUS are effectively claiming a monopoly on the worldwide RAM market. They get to set the price of a given technology. They get to say that their madcap RAMBUS technology will be licensed for a slightly less extortionate rate than SDRAM. If that's not in breach of the Sherman Act I don't know what is.

    Paul.
  • This is a company that definitely needs to learn how to play well with the "other kids". It is plainly obvious that this is a company that doesn't give a damn about the consumer. Probably due to the fact that most of their direct sales do not involve the bottom level consumers of their products. Most people haven't a clue what the difference is between one type of RAM and the next when they go into Best Buy and pick up their shiny new CTX or ACER. Computers and internet technologies do not seem to be the type of thing that the legal system of this country understands enough about to preside over. It is unfortunate, but after one anti-trust suit this year, it seems unlikely that the justice department is going to take on another, especially so close to an election. Rambus will likely continue to make things worse for now. We can only hope as consumers, the state of quality and RDRAM prices will improve. I hate to say it, but it looks like the consumers are just gonna suck this one up.
  • , but that isn't using monopolistic powers badly

    Actually, the whole point of a patent is to give you a limited-time, legally valid monopoly. So, they are being monopolistic, but that's what they're supposed to do.

    However, these other companies have invested years in development, and ramping up, of SDRAM. Pulling out now would cause a huge problem. I don't know if it would be possible to develop a new tech that could compete with RD-RAM, but I'm guessing that it couldn't be done for years. (and would require a redesign of all motherboards, etc).

    The point of the patent system is to promote science, and innovation. Driving up the price of RAM so that you're crappier ram is cheaper probably does not help to promote science and innovation (In general, it might be detrimental to it, seeing how computers are used in all major science and engendering projects around the world, and cheaper RAM would help that out).

    Additionally, revoking patents occasionally, when they cause problems, is probably not going to stop people from developing new RAM.
  • from the news: NEC SUSPENDS DRDRAM MAKING ON POOR DEMAND OUTLOOK http://www2.marketwatch.com/quotes/quotes.asp?sour ce=htx/http2_mw&symb=NIPNY
  • People rag on patents that are overly broad or are obvious.

    Several of the Rambus patents are dead obvious. Like using the leading and falling edge -- they weren't the first to think of it, by a looooong shot: they merely happened to be the first to patent - note, patent, not apply it - to memory.

    Likewise, the Amazon one-click. AFAIK, they didn't invent it: they just managed to patent it, and no one who did do it as prior art wishes to invest resources in trying to prove it. Especially as applies web design: it's a bitch to prove that your work was dated '94 and not '99.

    Patents aren't bad.

    But they are being put to bad use. Patenting obvious methods that you didn't invent is bad.


    --
  • Can anyone point to a patent that makes any compelling sense to issue? I cannot think of one. The RAMBUS episode is just the latest example of what patents are really about.

    There are tons of these, actually.

    Seriously, there are many technological advances that are a huge improvement over the status quo, and where it was far from clear that the device or process in question could work, and, if it did, it was valuable to know how it was built or implemented. This was not the case for things like one-click ordering, of course, but probably was the case for such stunning advances as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique of amplifying DNA samples or some of the great new silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology in the semiconductor industry.

    Moreover, in the world of drug development, patents are almost certainly required to spur investment in the stupendously costly (but necessary in the long run) clinical trials one needs to get a drug certified by the FDA for a particular use.

    There is a lot of slop that gets patented, and this is an unfortunate twisting of the ideals behind the patent system. But there are fistfuls of patents for technology that really does matter and for which the availability of patent protection has advanced the state of the art.

  • If companies want to compete, shouldn't they have to make a better product with different technology?

    Different technology... yeah maybe in some alternate universe. Maybe there you can add a cherry on top of your product and not have the laws of physics trash it to pieces.

    It's like saying if companies want to compete in the bottled refreshment industry they have to use different Hydrogen and Oxygen. I hate to burst your bubble but that's the curse in this universe.

    Hint: that's why software was invented. Adapter cards are dead weight much like a water wheel without water. Software is the key. Software allows engineers to get out of the confines of physics.

    The laws of physics aren't democratic. They don't give a crap about what you intend to do, only tell you what will and won't work. You can't just pull an idea out of your arse and say let there be light. With patenteers (those who don't need the protection to survive), it becomes extremely difficult to get in the game. There's very little room in the laws of physics for new products. There's a lot of room in the production stages for better quality. However you can't even talk about better quality because you're not even allowed to build the general thing itself. In a sense a WHOLE class of devices are patented by one patent.

    That's just how science works. Everything you design comes back to haunt you. Every step you make is going to be a road block. No way around it. Just look at caches in cpus. Every improvement fucks up something else. Nature is a stubborn bitch.

    Consumers don't give a damn about new ideas only useful things that should work. This means making a buck means making the same old shit better than everyone else. In specialized markets it means using the SAME technology, just taking better care of the component parts. Different technology is for quacks who have money to burn.

  • Every manufacturer has been manufacturing this type of RAM for a while. It wasn't until RDRAM looked liked a crappy competitor when RAMBUS released the lawyers. So since RAMBUS wasn't enforcing their patent at all, is there a case? (Or am I confusing this with trademarks)
  • Seems to me that Rambus is acting in a perfectly legal manner based on what rights they have been granted by the patent office. While these companies go about fighting eachother over who owns what, it seems that a larger picture is being missed.

    Why isn't the Patent Office held accountable for questionable patents that result in millions of dollars of legal fees? If anyone should be getting sued here, it should be those people that granted this virtually unlimited monopoly power to a company like Rambus for a technology that they didn't invent.

    Until those that issue bad patents are truly held accountable for not doing the research needed to insure good patents, then we're just going to go through this same problem over and over again. Doesn't matter if we're talking about Amazon, Rambus, or Microsoft. There desperately needs to be a check and balance that doesn't involve lining the pockets of even more lawyers.
  • I'm reading at +2, so maybe this is in no way original...

    Key points:
    1 - It is alleged that Rambus failed to comply with the JEDEC rules (id est; sat on a patent without revealing an interest) that it had agreed to.

    2 - It is alleged that there is prior art for the key patents that Rambus holds. nota bene; not all the patents, just the key ones vis a vis competition in the DRAM manufacturing industry.

    Now (1) implies - should they in fact have been disingenuous - that regardless of whether they _mentioned_ their IPR claim(s) at the time or not, it is void by virtue of their *explicit* agreement to the terms of the joint standardisation effort. This is not a monopoly/trust issue. If they were not bound to mention then what they bring up now then all power to them. That is called being clever (geek respect for brainpower, geek disrespect for sneakiness and failure to give dues to peers, such has the libertarian/communitarian axis ever been stressed)

    So, (2). Not at all a follow on from (1). Establishment is a question of mostly fact with a salt of interpretation.

    In reality an antitrust suit will live by the argument that standards promote competition, and that by _appearing_ to support a standard and then undermining it Rambus is being anticompetitive. This is like beds (bear with me). It is a *good* thing that every fitted queen size sheet fits every queen size mattress; this allows us to buy our sheets and mattresses from different manufacturers with ease.

    So Rambus is trying to say "pay us for the privilege of a standard bed size". And this is where they may get caught by anti-trust legislation. Remember, Sherman is not about details of what you did, but about *effects*, and that is the beauty of it.

    My bet is that they quietly license some tech for less than they could get if they enforced the patents, because it saves everyone time, and in semiconductors time is even more valuable then money...

    M
  • ... actually make developments available to a wider circle of possible developers. The fact that there's money involved is just a spin-off of that system. If patents were handled to do this, I'd agree. Then, they'd support the development of new technologies based on other ideas.

    The way it currently is is somewhat unpleasant as patents are used only to press money out of others who want to use the system. In the case of Rambus, it is even used to force the spreading of a somewhat strange, half-mature technology.

    Oh, and about "Open-Sourcing" standards like video compression: look what these standards are actually being used for. We can be glad that QuickTime was ported to Windows because apple uses it to promote their own systems. Indeo is somewhat different, but as it is an Intel development, I'd be surprised if it wasn't "optimized" for Intel systems (though, we can expect to have some more or less open port to Linux and Be form Intel themselves as they like the system *g*). The "best" of all standards however is - IMHO - DVD. It's locked to mainly two OSs, Windows and MacOS for some obscure reasons (OK, this is off topic...)

    See something? Many "standards" are just set up to promote some proprietary system(s). Not what it was meant to do.

    Paranoids of the world, Unite!

  • You forgot the animated paperclip ;-)
  • Saying that patent enforcement can be used in an anti-competitive manner is for the government to admit that the Patent Office is giving these companies a tool of monopoly, and exposes the Patent Office for the truly incompetent bunch of fools that they are (at least when it comes to technology patents).
  • The article says that they were part of an open standards group named JEDEC. They secretly produced several patents that partained to the results of the standards group. They then pulled out of JEDEC and pursued their own interests. It's entirely possible that they in fact stole basic ideas from the group and patented them on their own.

    The real issue, however, is that this article suggests that the patents were on technology that was pre-existent, and therefore the patent was improperly issued. The defence is one of "prior art", though I'm not really familiar with the topic.
  • Well, you might have seen it on /., but it's certainly not true. A successful patent application grants the applicant a limited monopoly, it does not grant them immunity from the Sherman Antitrust Act and related legislation. Note that I am not a lawyer, and what I say may also be untrue (but if it does give such immunity, surely Microsoft would have used its hundreds of patents as a defense in its recent case).

    There's a common misconception that the Sherman Antitrust Act makes monopolies illegal. That is not true. What it does do is restrict the behavior of monopolies and groups of companies (i.e. trusts) which collectively control an industry.

    If Rambus controls RDRAM technology (which is undisputed), and controls SDRAM technology through patent licensing (which is what all the lawsuits are about) then they effectively control a trust of RAM device companies. Therefore the Sherman Antitrust Act requires them to avoid anticompetitive behavior. There are a lot of details missing in my description, but that's one part of the DRAM's tack. The other, of course, is getting Rambus's patents on technology developed in the JEDEC conference invalidated, since those weren't theirs to patent.

    ----

  • Then they popped up exclaiming "Oh, look what I've just found in my back pocket!"

    I thought this wasn't allowed in Patent Law.

    IIRC, you must vigorously defent every patent infringement or lose your ability to sue altogether. This was sone to prevent this exact problem.

    I hope RAMBUS gets slapped with a countersuit (how I don't know) over this. Companies should be responsible for their actions.

  • Happens all the time. Not just in this way either. There are also speculative patents known as "submarine patents." These are usually vague, sweeping patents that are kept forever in the processing phase until such time as enough commercial products exist to provide targets for lawsuits. At that time, the patent owner has his lawyer do whatever is needed to get the patent approved (and since it hadn't been approved yet, nobody could have seen it or disputed it), at which time they proceed to sue the pants off of anyone making anything that they believe infringes on their patent. It's usually faster and cheaper for these companies to pay the royalties than to try to dispute the patent (thanks to our wonderful PTO). That's why these guys often get away with these scams.

    It doesn't sound like this is exactly what happened with RAMBUS, but it isn't much different.

  • You say "Is Rambus really responsible for every major DRAM implimentation [sic] over the last 5-10 years?" The answer is "Maybe and maybe not, but this is not a condition for their patents to hold up."

    Let's assume RamBus' patents are valid and not fraudulent (this is a big if). Let's further assume that other companies independently arrived at some of the same innovations (this is quite likely; it happens all the time).

    If Company A arrives at an innovation before Company B independently arrives at the same innovation, Company A can still get a patent, issued perhaps ex post facto to Company B's work, and the patent will still hold up! That is the way patents work. That is the way patents are supposed to work. That is why I believe patent law is immoral, unethical, and evil the way it is constituted.
  • It is ridiculous that companies like RAMBUS get to do this kind of thing to the industry. Hopefully this will not only stop them but the kind of frivalous lawsuits that they have been filling that last few weeks. And maybe it'll bring SDRAM prices back down :)
  • In the cases settled with Rambus by Toshiba and Hitachi, what exactly were the terms agreed to yet not disclosed? My theory is that Rambus gave them both sweetheart deals -- without disclosing the specific terms, i.e. how much do they pay in royalties -- in order to settle the cases in a manner which appears to be in Rambus' favor, thus positively influending RMBS stock price.

    Rambus is a sham... a company that does nothing but sell rights to some questionable "intellectual property". They will be made irrelevant by the progress of technology and the free market system.
  • This isn't an advertising forum...

    Jerks who post stuff like this on /. should be drug out into the street and shot!
  • To quote the article:

    "Rambus was... in JEDEC... but pulled out... in 1995."

    Despite the premature withdrawal last time, evidently they're hoping to get another chance to screw their old buddies good this time.

    Hitachi has bent over, but I'm expecting a premature ejaculation.
  • Call me stupid, but I don't get it. It seems like Rambus has a pretty straightforward patent on a bit of technology, and competitors don't like it.

    This isn't a troll, I'm hoping someone can either explain this to me or point me to where I can find more information, but why shouldn't Rambus be able to get royalties for this patent. Sure, it's pretty crappy of them to sorta screw consumers by driving up competing prices, but that isn't using monopolistic powers badly. If companies want to compete, shouldn't they have to make a better product with different technology?

    Like I said, I don't get it, but it makes no sense to me.
    -Jer
  • As explicity stated in the Bill of the Rights, the U.S. Patent Office is designed "to promote invention and science in the many States." If people can't make money if their work, they don't have much motivation to create -- remember, we live in a capitalist society, and people do have to make money somehow.

    Would Rambus and Amazon.com have any reason to create new technologies if they wouldn't profit from them? If every other retailer immediately instituted One-Click Shopping, then what would have Amazon.com gained? Nothing!

    So why do we so people rag on patents? Because they want to use that technology! People want to open-source stuff like Quicktime (and, more importantly, the Indeo codec) -- which would, of course, benefit them. There's nothing wrong with saying that it should be open-sourced, but you have to keep in mind that these people are acting in their own self-interest. They'd benefit from QuickTime being open-sourced, so of course they're going to be against the Indeo patent.

    In other words, patents aren't bad. The people trashing patents are largely those who would benefit from claiming that technology for themselves. We have a word for this: JEALOUSY.

  • Isn't This Backwards? (Score:3)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @04:25PM (#944373) Homepage Journal

    Didn't I see somewhere on Slashdot (as if that made it true) a post by someone saying that, according to the courts, enforcement of a patent can never be deemed an anti-competetive act with respect to anti-trust law? Anyone have facts on this point? What tack are the DRAM companies actually pursuing?

    Schwab

  • I don't even believe that people shoudl be allowed to have copyrights, but when they do, they sure as hell shouldn't enforce them unfairly!

    Copyrights? what copyrights?

    We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
  • Jerks who post stuff like this on /. should be drug out into the street and shot!

    You're certainly living up to your Redneck status!

    :)
  • Now if only if this happened in every other situation... imagine how better this world would be. (and don't gimme shit about Microsoft)

  • Regarding Dell being forced to waive patent claims as a result of participation in an industry stantdards forum. I wonder if this could also be applied to Frauenhofer's (sp!) patent on Layer 3 MPEG Audio encoding, or Apple's patents relating to MPEG4 encoding?

  • RAMBUS, correct me if I'm wrong, has patents on devices with descriptions as "synchronous memory device". Anybody who's taken an elementary logic design class knows that such terms are both incredibly basic and very broad. As has been brought up here and elsewhere, the real tragedy here is that such patents were awarded in the first place - Rambus should never have been in this position.

  • Didn't I see somewhere on Slashdot (as if that made it true) a post by someone saying that, according to common sense, moderating someone up for posting something completly unsubstanciated was, well, pointless. What tack are the Metamoderators acutaly taking?

    We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
  • Yep. Patents themselves aren't a bad idea, but you're only supposed to be able to patent the specific implementation of an idea, or the specific way of doing something. It seems that RAMBUS has gotten away with conning an overgeneralized patent out of the Patent Office.
  • As the article notes, the FTC has no jurisdiction to decide if a patent is valid or not.

    What these compaines should be doing is challenging the patent on DDR RAM in court, on the basis that it is overly obvious.

    After all, your memory clock has two edges. So if you're already transmitting data on one of the edges, why not transmit it on the other one as well. I just don't see how anything like that could ever be considered anything but "obvious".

    Yes, the patent office is so poorly mismanaged these days that it will grant stupid patents like this all the time, but that's why it needs to be challenged in court! Get it in front of a judge and show him how simple it is, and then it will be thrown out! They shouldn't even be bothering with the anti-trust stuff until after they try that tack first!

  • Re:Patents are GOOD (Score:5)

    by nyet ( 19118 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @07:45PM (#944382) Homepage
    What you meant to say is that in theory patents aren't bad. In practice, however, they are almost all unilaterally bad and do NOT promote "innovation", let alone "invention and science in the many States."

    What the current system does promote is predatory patent portfolio arbitration. Corporations have long figured out how to maximize profit and stifle competition, all without appriciably "innovating", and all in the name of "patent" protection.

    Corporations are blatantly misusing patent law so they can use their patents as poker chips in the grand game of Who-Can-Patent-As-Many-Concepts-As-Possible.

    The corporation with the most patents has the largest supply of ammunition should they become the target of a patent infringment lawsuit. Invariably, such lawsuits end in a out of court-settled cross-licensing deal.

    I speak from first hand experience as I have worked in the R&D department of several large corporations. There is always a race to patent your silly idea first, and if you have alot of them to back you up, when you inadvertently step on somebody else's patent, you have a good chance of being able to continue your work.

    If you are in a small business, or are an "independant" inventor (arguably the main things patents supposedly serve to protect) you are screwed if your widget happens to use somebody elses "obvious" idea.

    In all these battles, I have NEVER seen the best techology win, and I have NEVER witnessed a patent (issued OR pending) that "incentivized" innovation or invention. It's all about the benjamins, never about science.

    Just a nit pick, the Bill of Rights doesn't mention patents and copyrights. It is covered in Article 1, Section 8 in the main body of the Constitution.

    Finally, I'd like to close with a little quote from Jefferson, just to clarify what our Founding Fathers could POSSIBLY have been thinking when they decided to take this path.

    "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."

    - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813

    Too bad corporations have brainwashed everybody into thinking financial incentive always leads to innovation. Jefferson would be spinning in his grave.

  • Re:Patents are GOOD (Score:3)

    by nyet ( 19118 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @07:51PM (#944383) Homepage
    Oops I forgot to add the ACUTAL quote from the Constitution (Article 1 Section 8 Paragraph 8)

    "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

    FYI the actual Patent Act is MUCH longer and was enacted in 1790.

    Also,
    here [ladas.com] is a good short history of Patent Law in the US.

  • The grant of federal power to secure patents isn't in the bill of rights. It's in Article I, along with all the other clauses about legislative power. Your quote is also horribly paraphrased.
  • Methinks they are not actually reading the discussion to get context for the moderation. If you don't like how it's going go to slashdot.org/metamod.pl [slashdot.org] and do it yourself...

  • 1) There's no such thing as a straightforward patent in days when the patent office pays people on the number they approve per month.

    Excuse me? A quick check with the USPTO web site [uspto.gov] shows that patent examiners are paid on the GS scale (grades 5 to 11), just like the majority of the federal government. These are annual salaries -- their pay has nothing to do with "the number they approve per month." Where did you hear that piece of information? Or did you just make it up?

    BTW, GS-5 is a ridiculously low salary for the work they do (starts at $21,370 a year) so it's no wonder they're understaffed..

    -Orion, PS-5 government employee

  • Hmm I don't think I mentioned anything about communism. You may want to calm down and re-read what I posted.
  • IIRC, you must vigorously defent every patent infringement or lose your ability to sue altogether. This was sone to prevent this exact problem.

    That's only for trademarks. Copyright and patents are very different, and do not require you to pursue infringers to hold the patent/copyright. You are allowed to pick and choose who you sue and who you don't...

    I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
    Q.Tell me what the trail was.
  • In general, that'd be trademarks which you lose the right to enforce if you're not vigilant, not patents or copyright.
  • While it's true that the pay standard is set by the regular guv'ment scales, Uncle Sam has the same bad habit of adopting useless "metrics" in evasluating employee performance that private industry does. While a cop won't get paid less for not meeting his "performance expectation" of tickets, don't call them "quotas"!...

    I'm an investigator. I followed a trail there.
    Q.Tell me what the trail was.
  • And now Rambus is simply reaping the rewards of vigilance by persuing their patent claims.

    Well actually many of their patents infringe on IBM's patents which cover nearly all aspects of computing platforms in general including RAM. I am wondering where they are in all of this. Big Blue could easily come in and put the smack down on this little punk. Either way, there is more prior art then needed to tell Rambus to fuck off.

    I don't see how Rambus will sell anything at three times the price with no performance gain.

    More bandwidth. Lower pin count. Better granularity. I'm not going to sit here and argue about whether or not Rambus's RAM is technically superior or not -- that's been done at length here already.

    Latency. It has been argued here, extensively I might add, how much Rambus sucks. Where have you been?
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • Recently I saw that there is a very annoying paperclip made for vi. It was based on a userfriendly storyline. Sounds like we have either evil people or those that had someone they wanted to annoy.

    Guess I will have to learn emacs.

  • While I agree that if a company REALLY developed the technology, then it's their right to collect royalties...the story goes on to indicate that there is applicable prior art AND that the patents were filed AFTER participation in JEDEC committees. In my mind it shows to problems.

    1) Our patent system is screwy. The patents last WAY to long in these days of 6 month product cycles. Further, as illustrated by this case, the patent office does a poor job of looking for prior art and seems to rely merely on the submissions within the patent itself (like a fox being in charge of the chicken coop...)

    2) The anti-trust claims seem to have some meat if they did indeed participate in the JEDEC committees then pulled out.

    3) I KNOW there was prior art. For goodness sake, moving data/addresses relative to a clock - there is a novel idea. Ever heard of Synch SRAMS? They existed back in the early 90's when I was still doing board design. Data clocked out relative to "CAS" on a normal DRAM is essentially a synchronous data cycle. "CAS" is acting as a clock. I'd really love to know what is so novel about their data interfaces that hasn't been done a 1000 times before on other synch busses. Wouldn't a burst data cycle from a memory system within a main-frame count???
  • 1) There's no such thing as a straightforward patent in days when the patent office pays people on the number they approve per month.

    2) And even if there way, RAMBUS wouldn't be it. They filed a 'simultaneous patent' after engaging in talks & work with most of these companies -- who were working on the technologies on their own.

    3) 'Tis to say, it's not clear the technology is theirs -- what is clear is that they've muddied the issue and are using legal brinkmanship to try and get $s out of the technology, whether or not they own it.

    Which makes them a class act, 'specially as we're paying up the nose for it.

    RAMBUT would be a better name, but it's the rest of the industry's butt...
  • I agree; patents arn't bad.

    What I have a problem with is when litigation stemming from supposed 'patent infringement' ends up scaring away competition and/or innovation. Now I'm not saying this is the case with RAMBUS--in fact I'm almost willing to say it isn't.

    However, I'm not a fan of companies that patent business practices, or concepts. Unless RAMBUS paptented the idea of faster memory, it's perfectly acceptable for other companies to develop another technology different from RAMBUS's which will allow for faster (and hopefuly cheaper memory)

    This is the way it should work. patents are good, when they assist in innovation--but when you've got the Amazon.com's of the world patenting ideas and not implementions--that's when things get a little crazy.

    That and when innovation dies at the end of a lawsuit. Too much litigation, if you ask me, and not enough innovation.

  • I don't understand (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't think you quite understand what's happening here. RAMBUS owns patents on practically all ram, and persuing their patent claims is well within their rights. Hitachi pretty much owned up to this, and the other manufacturers are certain to fall in line. This is nothing more than a bluff, and I suspect that you'll be seeing more of RAMBUS doing what they really *should* be doing, selling sticks.

    Fred Persec,
    CTO Dyna Quist Industries Inc.

  • well. (Score:1)

    by delmoi ( 26744 )
    That would probably be a good idea for them. One company controling the worlds RAM supply couldn't really be a good thing, could it?

    We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
  • The problem here is that there are no details. The article indicates that Rambus has a patent on some technology that was already in use 10 years ago. It also hints that they participated in open discussions then walked out of the discussions and patented what the consortium came up with.

    Problem is, we don't really know. Any enterprising individual want to lookup the patent and translate it for us Slashdotters? Until we get those details, we cannot make an informed evaluation.
  • I agree with vertical-limit that people attack the patent system for their self interest. Patent emphasizes on creating new things --- so even if you wrote trillion lines of codes, but if they were nothing new, you could not get a patent. Different from what is mentioned in Bessen and Maskin's paper, inventors apply patents not only to raise money to cover the R&D cost, but also to maximize their profits. Money is certainly one of the reasons for people to create. But on the other hand, inventors often invent something that do not have commerical values. So it is necessary for inventors to maiximize their profit in order to cover the R&D cost of the unsuccessful inventions, and also other future projects. When outside investors are involved, it is necessary for a company to protect its IP to maximize the profit of its investors. If a company wanted to compete with Amazon, it should do the homework finding a way to work around the patent. Without proper IP protection, first commers, who make all the mistake and lose money during the R&D phase, might find it difficult to compete with the second commers, who avoid making mistakes and losing money by following behind.
  • Can anyone point to a patent that makes any compelling sense to issue? I cannot think of one. The RAMBUS episode is just the latest example of what patents are really about.

    Show me a patent people are cheering for and I will show you a group of cheering lawyers.

  • Thou shalt not spend more on patent lawyers than thou hast spent on R&D.. *grin*

    I think that sums up it nicely!

  • People who actually do something with patented technology always have a reason to innovate. It always pay's off to be first. For a lot of fields trade secrets could easily replace patents again without slowing down innovation IMO.
  • Well, assuming that to be true, it still does not stop the SDRAM companies from challenging the validity of the patent. The articles seems to state they plan on doing just that:
    A vice president at one of the so-called Big Five DRAM producers, who declined to be identified, said memory vendors had hoped the Rambus synchronous patents would be invalidated as the intellectual-property house proceeded with its lawsuit against Hitachi and Sega.

  • Yes it is screwing consumers (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry.. but when a $120 128MB SDRAM memory outperforms the $800+ 128MB RAMBUS memory and then RAMBUS sues to get royalties from the SDRAM manufacturers to drive up their prices past RAMBUS prices.. that tells me they are engaging in monopolistic bullying. In fact, it makes me wonder how RAMBUS expects to get away with charging 8 times more than the competing, FASTER standard that is supposedly based on their own technology. Tell me that. It sounds like RAMBUS is trying to gouge consumers.. and for that they deserve to be fucking bitchslapped into oblivion. FUCK rambus. It sucks.

  • Re:Rambus is easy to dislike (Score:3)

    by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @06:19AM (#944405) Homepage
    Toshiba is terrified of US courts. Last year they shelled out a couple BILLION dollars in settling a class action lawsuit over a notebook floppy drive flaw that could only be produced in a lab. The Japanese honchos think that American jurys are just itching to take multi-billion dollar chunks out of big businesses, epecially foreign businesses. Read up on the smoking case in Florida and they might not be that wrong.

    -B
  • Be lucky we're not in Russia.

    Apparently, some company there just patented the bottle. Yeah, glass bottle for storing all kinds of liquids and stuff. They invented it. Really. Pay up man.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • Toshiba has repeatedly been butt-fucked by the US justice system ever since they were caught selling silent-submarine-propeller technology to the Soviets.

    I'm not saying that they deserve it, or not. I'm just saying, I don't blame them for not wanting to have their healing hemmorhoids ripped open again.

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • There are tons of these, actually.

    I have to disagree.

    Answer this question: Would any of these wonderful things not have been developed if they could not be patented?
  • I have to disagree.

    Answer this question: Would any of these wonderful things not have been developed if they could not be patented?

    The answer to that is, in general, unknowable, in that it's counterfactual. But I am unaware of any evidence that suggests patent systems have slowed the rate of invention, and it's easy to see how they could speed the rate of invention. (Unfortunately, a poorly-run system can also increase the rate of non-invention that you can claim as invention; this is the real problem).

    But in the specific case of pharmaceutical research, I think it is very clear that the patent system has sped up the development of new, useful, drugs. In order to market a new drug in the US, you have to prove that it is both safe and effective, and this essentially entails the fact that you provide all of the information about the drug so that somebody skilled in the art could synthesize it. This process of proof, however, is hideously expensive to the point that you have to hold out some possibility for gain, whether it be though the patent system or some other mechanism, to get anybody to engage in the process. (OK, you could try and argue that this should be a governmental function, but then I'd ask you for any evidence that this would be faster or cheaper than the current system.)

    And, again, I think this points out what is wrong about the current system: you can too easily get a patent for non-inventions, which helps nobody. There was nothing novel or unobvious about any number of web commerce patents out there (to name a particularly annoying category); the same cannot be said about most drug patents out there. Indeed, we know that this is the case because many clinical trials, even when conducted with strong prior information that a compound should be effective lead to the rejection of the drug in question as a clinically meaningful substance. In otherwords, the result was non-obvious.

  • Somewhere in the US patent law, it states that the thing produced must be "non-obvious."

    >Would Rambus and Amazon.com have any reason to create new technologies if they wouldn't profit from them? If every other retailer immediately instituted One-Click Shopping, then what would have Amazon.com gained?
    Nothing!

    RAMBUT is using patent law to claim it owns something it didn't make on its own... so it can force its stock price up and get money from whomever caves in (not to mention how often Hitachi, Toshiba and RAMBUT executives are in bed together anyway...).

    Amazon did nothing that wasn't really, really obvious.

    In both cases, the 'patents' discourage others and hurt the marketplace. Patents are supposed to strike a balance between rewarding innnovation and allowing cheap, easy use -- not provide a playground for money-hungry corporations to gobble up whatever they can as the lawyers duke it out, while (I've said it before) the rest of us take it up the BUTT).
  • Yah rambus sucks donkey nuts. When I saw this it brought great joy to me, maybe rambus will just fuck off if they lose.. we can only hope.

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