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BusinessWeek Examines the Rambus Legal Saga 118

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the collusion-around-every-corner dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Now that three companies have admitted to colluding to fix DRAM prices in what has turned out to be a global conspiracy BusinessWeek takes a look at the why. The most recent to admit guilt was Samsung and no one, as yet, knows precisely why they did it. The short answer seems to be because they didn't want Rambus' memory technology, DR-DRAM to succeed in the market. The more complicated answer is that now that Samsung, Infineon and Hynix have all admitted to fixing prices, they're now lawsuits from Rambus alleging that their motivation was to "kill Rambus" by making it too expensive for it to be attractive for PC manufacturers. Today in San Francisco, lawyers for Rambus are going to argue for the release of a set of documents currently under seal, that they think could go a long way toward proving their case. If nothing else, the timing of the price-fixing, which ran from 1999 to mid-2002 is suspicious, because that was about the same time that the DRAM companies would have been resisting pressure to adopt Rambus."
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BusinessWeek Examines the Rambus Legal Saga More

BusinessWeek Examines the Rambus Legal Saga

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  • Rambus and a Price-Fixing Tale
    The chip-technology designer fights in court for rivals' documents that may bolster its defense against an FTC antitrust complaint

    It's a matter of public record that at least three companies participated in a global conspiracy to manipulate the prices of computer memory chips. The U.S. Justice Dept. settled the issue by handing down more than $600 million in fines against the businesses, most recently Samsung in October. What isn't known, though, is why they did it.

    And Rambus (
    • You know, that whole "think about your breathing" (or sometimes other additions) thing you do in your posts is really irritating... I don't care about the attention being drawn to breathing, but I do care about extra text in an article that doesn't belong. Please, when you copy and paste the article, don't add to it, especially not in the middle. That's not witty or clever, it's stupid. What's next? Think about the size of your tongue in your mouth, how huge and weird it is?

  • Sad story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 5, Troll ( 919133 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:31AM (#13922211) Journal
    This article just scratches the surface of a story that is reminiscent of "Tucker" and how Pan Am (airlines) went after TWA. There are incredible connections between Rambus' adversaries, US Congressmen, the FTC and a whole cadre of politicans, judges, government officials and law firms working in concert against Rambus. It's the story of a $30 billion dollar industry of multi-billion dollar, multi-national corporations out to steal the assets of and destroy a tiny 200-person startup. Rambus' legal bills fighting this mess have been a quarter-billion dollars, far more than their total annual revenue. Rambus has managed to fight this battle while prospering and remaining profitable the entire time, but it's a sad tale of corruption and power politics at their very worst.

    • Re:Sad story (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drgonzo59 ( 747139 )
      I see the story to be more of a "let's sue anyone we can because we can and that is how we'll make all the money since making money off of patents didn't work"

    • Re:Sad story (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:11AM (#13922304)
      While the collusion of established companies to wipe out newcomers is nothing to dismiss, you can't portray Rambus as a pure, innocent victim. If you recall, Rambus silently filed patents (for a relatively obvious concept) then submitted similar proposals to an ostensibly open forum of RAM manufacturers. They waited until their standards were adopted before filing suit to bilk the other manufacturers out of their profits. Indeed, Rambus could be considered a standard "patent factory" -- a company that produces nothing and relies on the patent system to siphon profits from the people who do actual development.

      Unfortunately, this is what you get when you pretend to support capitalism but actually have your government artificially subsidize all sorts of companies (through patents, tax breaks, and freedom from the responsibilities individual humans have). The successful companies are the ones who maximize their profits, and if there are minimal negative consequences for some vile act, they'll perform it eagerly. [end of rant]

      • Re:Sad story (Score:2, Insightful)

        by BitchKapoor ( 732880 )

        Indeed, Rambus could be considered a standard "patent factory" -- a company that produces nothing and relies on the patent system to siphon profits from the people who do actual development.

        Rambus did not produce nothing; they designed and implemented a very high performance memory bus architecture. This technology was matured to the point that it was practical and stable to implement on high-volume, quality products such as the Sony PlayStation 2 and a variety of higher-end Intel chipsets and motherbo

    • After the crap they pulled with their patents and the standards bodies.. I'll be sure to feel sorry for them.
    • Um, Rambus is just as filthy as the rest of these guys. I know a guy that used to work for Rambus during that period of time. As most technology writers have reported on by now, Rambus was pushing their ram to become the next standard in the industry. While they secretly had plans to patent everything at just the right time so that they would have everyone on the hook. This guy that worked there knew all about the shenanigans and subsequently quit (from a fairly cushy job into unemployment) because he didn'

    • Short Memory (Score:2, Informative)

      by javamagnoman ( 885327 )
      You have it reversed. It's the story of a tiny 200 person company created by US lawyers to steal the profits of a foreign $30 Billion dollar industry and a whole cadre of US politicans, US judges, US government officials and the US Patent office working in concert with Rambus against the "foreigners".

      The funny thing is that Rambus purposefully destroyed the incriminating documents that showed that the company had a strategy of submarine patents, and the US Judge at the first trial (and subsequent appeals)

  • Only a good thing to collude against rambus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Saven Marek ( 739395 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:32AM (#13922214)
    well rambus wanted such high amounts to license its technology that it was effectively using patenting to work against ram manufacturers to ensure they paid rambus lots of money as opposed to all the ram manufacturers getting together to make sure rambus and their expensive (to the ram producing companies) licenses for their dr-dram would fail.

    to me the first situation is abuse of the patent system to pull cash out of everybody and the latter is just a democracy decision by many ram manufacturers to ensure rambus didn't succeed in the greedy cash grab.

    I'll take democracy thanks

    • Re:Only a good thing to collude against rambus (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:50AM (#13922247) Journal
      I'll take democracy thanks

      Your "democracy" is currently illegal, so you better do something other then post to slashdot if you want to protect it.

      Having said that, I don't think price fixing is good. And this was price fixing. Do you know what happens when companies get together to collude towards a certain price against a competitor (not that this has been proven, but from what I've read, I don't feel it's much of a leap)? Once the competitor dies, they raise the prices. Don't think this was about keeping the price low. It wasn't. This was about big companies protecting themselves against a little start up. Why they felt the need to do so is beyond me. Obviously Rambus had something worthwhile to offer, which they found easiest to combat via illegal business practices.

      And to those who will point out Rambus is currently under litigation via an appeal process, to paraphrase someone from the article Rambus's illegal practices is "irrelevant" to the conspiracy against them by at least these 3 companies. Two wrongs don't make a right.

      Regardless of what I think, it's quite possible for once that the truth will get out in the court.
      • Why they felt the need to do so is beyond me. Obviously Rambus had something worthwhile to offer, which they found easiest to combat via illegal business practices.

        It wasn't a rambus product that was being combated it was rambuses abuse of patents to extort huge high prices from actual manufacturers of RAM (rambus only own IP, they do not produce anything) for the privilege of producing RAM to a standard that many manufacturers got together to design, but rambus patented and tried to force their patents int

        • Re:Only a good thing to collude against rambus (Score:5, Insightful)

          by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:10AM (#13922303) Journal
          The problem is, when people go about protecting themselves (or attacking) bad people (or companies) in an illegal way, they deserve the full weight of the law brought against them.

          Society follows a collection of rules in order to survive. Together these rules are called the law. When people break the rules, then they harm all of society.

          Just think, had they not done this, while Rambus may have survived, they would have been able to have a better case in which to fight against Rambus's practices, and work towards changing, if not abolishing patent laws. As it is, they're illegal practices will now be used to protect Rambus against the law.
      • And have you thought about what happens once the competitor they were trying to destroy is gone?
        They go back to competing against each other. You think companies will stay friendly forever?

      • Re:Only a good thing to collude against rambus (Score:5, Interesting)

        by value_added ( 719364 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @08:13AM (#13922622)
        Do you know what happens when companies get together to collude towards a certain price against a competitor (not that this has been proven, but from what I've read, I don't feel it's much of a leap)? Once the competitor dies, they raise the prices.

        Once upon a time in New York when the Genovese, Gambino and Columbo families were household names, the price for getting the garbage picked up was higher inside the city than elsehwere. The DoJ et al decided this wasn't A Good Thing and decided to go break up the cosy business arrangements, eventually sending scores of hard working Italian Americans to jail, and ending years of tradition. As expected, the prices soon plummeted as competition was brought back into the marketplace. The people saw that It Was Good and cheered.

        That would be a happy ending, but the story doesn't end there. Waste Management, Inc. and another company decided that there was money to be made in New York and moved in to start buying up the local competition. Within two years of The Big Bust, garbage pickup was handled by two conglomerates, and the price of getting it picked up was higher than in the days when mob was in charge of things.

        If there's a point to this it's that when there's money involved, rules get bent, and then some. There are no good guys or bad guys, and the side you're on is just that.
      • Don't think this was about keeping the price low. It wasn't. This was about big companies protecting themselves against a little start up. Why they felt the need to do so is beyond me.

        The Rambus story is pretty much a prior parallel of the SCO fiasco. A greedy little nothing with shotty technology tries to extort a whole industry. I see this case as an example of two wrongs making a right.

        (Usually, it takes three or four wrongs to make a right.)
        • A greedy little nothing with shotty technology tries to extort a whole industry.

          Also, they were circling the drain and "unexpectedly" discovered Intellectual Property that they could sue others with and put all the company's resources into being Litigious Bastards. Of course, the Intellectual Property was ill-gotten and they probably never owned it, since they had signed agreements with their industry-standards body disavowing patents in their contributions to the standards-setting process.
          • Man, you packed a ton of errors into two sentences.

            Rambus was not "circling the drain", they were a hot "internet stock". While its true that they weren't making a profit, their burn rate was low enough that they were likely to be around for a while.

            They didn't "unexpectedly" discover Intellectual Property. That's what they do. That's what they've always been (a company that designs memory interfaces and sells the rights to use them).

            The Intellectual Property was not ill-gotten and they did own it (see m
      • The d-ram companies got together to pick a next standard. Rambus pushed hard for one in particular, and the others went along. As soon as the ink was dry setting the standard, Rambus pulled out a patent for the standard. Generally talks like this include an explicit clause that disallows using a patented standard, but there was no such clause on these talks.

        So the other firms got together without rambus and said screw this we aren't paying obscene licensing fees. They chose another standard. They sued r
    • Rambus lost in the marketplace, because they were greedy bastards, and because their technology sucked anyway.

      The colluding RAM manufacturers will (hopefully) lose in the courts, because screwing over Rambus like that is illegal and wrong.

      All this is fine by me, because I don't like either of them anyway!

  • Vindicated? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:32AM (#13922215)
    Rambus has taken a lot of heat for allegedly inserting their IP-protected technology into the JEDEC process and has suffered under that yoke for years. Now it comes out that the companies wailing the hardest were actually out to destroy the "pure IP" company.

    I think that in this case there really isn't any good guy because all the parties involved are apparently bad guys.
    • Indeed, old bean, they are all companies and were all out to make money.

      ===

      I can understand the conspiracy... if there was something that was a threat to multiple companies, it is only logical to band together for economic survival.

      On the other hand, a good discovery should be rewarded... but of course... trying to make out with more than one is entitled to should be punished.

      ===

      Just elaborating on your original thought and mulling it all over in my head :)
    • "all the parties involved are apparently bad guys."

      The patent system pretty much encourages such behaviour. Awarding monopolies creates a situation where one company can gain control over anothers capability to compete and profit, an almost unacceptable risk; something that will only get worse as technology becomes more integrated.

      Consider if we had a system that worked more like other incentive systems, where the patent office paid the inventors instead; Rambus would apply for and be granted a patent, the

  • Wow - I am so conflicted (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:33AM (#13922217)
    Price fixing sucks. But this is Rambus we're talking about. Remeber RDRAM? Remember Rambus trying to hold JEDEC (and DRAM manufacturers) hostage through patent claims on DDR?

    • Re:Wow - I am so conflicted (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ditto, mostly for their fraud in the JEDEC matter. As a result they put themselves at the top of a lot of peoples 'love to hate' list along with MS and SCO for dodgey business pratices. Too bad the execs didn't do time for it. That would have been funny.

      It seems as they are now getting a taste of their own medicine.

      • Too bad the execs didn't do time for it. That would have been funny. More like righteous. More like the way to put an end to white collar crime. "Some men rob you with a gun, others rob you with a pen."

    • Re:Wow - I am so conflicted (Score:4, Insightful)

      by m50d ( 797211 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:37AM (#13922480) Homepage Journal
      Like I always say in the Real threads, it doesn't matter how big scumbags they are, they deserve the protection of the law like everyone else. They've been wronged here and they deserve compensation, regardless of anything else.

      • Re:Wow - I am so conflicted (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Omnifarious ( 11933 ) * <eric-slash AT omnifarious DOT org> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:53AM (#13922549) Homepage Journal

        Yes, the companies were basically engaging in vigilante justice. I can understand why. They wouldn't want to change laws to make RAMBUS' evil patent strategies unworkable because they themselves might want to use those strategies in the future. So, I guess in the final analysis I have little sympathy for them.

        Isn't it interesting how most talk about patents, even by their proponents, are all about restricting competition and keeping a hold on markets, and not about getting new ideas out in the open where people can see them?

        • Yes, most patents that are being filed these days are about restricting competition.
          Unfortunately, it's leading to a situation where all the companies have their hands around someone else's neck; they'll end up strangling each other and innovation to death at the expense of their consumers.

  • PC133 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Kurt Russell ( 627436 )
    I can remember it seemed like it doubled in price every damn week. One particular week I think it was Tom's Hardware that was blaming the price hikes on storms or earthquakes or some such nonsense..so much for that.
    It was nothing but a bunch of greedy monopolistic bastards; kinda like big oil... ooops....

    • Re:PC133 (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kurt Russell ( 627436 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @05:55AM (#13922264)
      I couldn't find it on Tom's but I did find this [theregister.co.uk]

      Greedy Bastards

    • The Kobe earthquake [tidbits.com] did have an impact on RAM prices (if that's the right word, in the circumstances) However, that was '95/'96

      Way back then I remember some guy trying to sell me a 2nd hand 32mb ram stick for over $100. I just told him I'd wait a couple of weeks. (By then it had probably doubled to $200. Gee, I sure nailed that price-gouger.)

  • What I want to know ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dennison_uy ( 313760 ) <dennison_uy@yaho ... m minus math_god> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:09AM (#13922297) Homepage
    "The most recent to admit guilt was Samsung and no one, as yet, knows precisely why they did it"

    What I find more interesting is why Samsung admitted its guilt. Isn't this negative publicity bad for them?

    • Re:What I want to know ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sockatume ( 732728 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:22AM (#13922315)
      I imagine that most people buying PCs don't care about where the memory comes from, and I don't think that the PCs' manufacturers care either, as long as there aren't any "Acer uses teh evilRAM"-style headlines to give them bad press.

    • Re:What I want to know ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HBergeron ( 71031 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:25AM (#13923481)
      THIS is +5 interesting???? RTMFA. No wonder why there are so many other ignorant comments about this case posted here.

      Samsung admitted guilt because the US DOJ had there ass in a sling and was about to hit them with Billion dollar penalties and jail time for many of their executives if they didn't plead guilty (as opposed to the hundreds of millions and likely jail time they did get.) Infineon pled guilty in this case and the DOJ still jailed 5 of their executives (even the Enron guys didn't go to jail - yet) Imagine what the penalties would have been if they hadn't pled guilty. Micron is the "stool pigeon" in all this - they are negotiating an better deal by turning state's evidence on their competitiors - though their deal has yet to be worked out.

      While we're at it, for all the ignorant posts about RMBS submarining the industry with patents and other alleged actions, take a look at another case - the FTC held the longest trial in it's history to prosecute Rambus on those charges. At the end of it, the judge, the senior judge, and AN FTC EMPLOYEE, Made a 300 page ruling in which he enumerated 12 reasons why Rambus was NOT GUILTY of any of the charges leveled against them. Before you go believing the PR of convicted felons you might want to read the reasoned opinions of a federal ALJ. http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9302/040223initialde cision.pdf [ftc.gov]

  • .. And the real winners are... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:09AM (#13922300)
    The lawyers of course!... "A quarter of a billion dollars in legal fees"?.. and that's from the Rambus side alone. Obscene. Imagine if that money was invested in R&D, instead of this pathetic sleazy game of vile deceit?.

  • Bad pratice all around. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Voltageaav ( 798022 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:27AM (#13922323) Homepage
    Rambus hasn't been playing by the rules either. They've been penalized for destroying documents, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050302-4664 .html [arstechnica.com] and are suing Samsung immediately after revoking their liscence. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5734443.html [zdnet.com] It seems as if the entire industry is corrupt.
  • They've actually become lawsuits?

    That is a complicated reason.

    • I was wondering the same thing! I am guessing that it happened this way:

      • there are lawsuits -- can I shorten that?
      • there're lawsuits -- shorter, but looks funny
      • they're lawsuits -- that looks much better!

      That is the danger of using contractions everywhere.

  • Interesting (Score:3, Informative)

    by rm999 ( 775449 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:47AM (#13922364)
    Rambus is the reason why I built my first computer AMD. Back then (2001), Pentium 4s forced you into using RDRAM, which was far more expensive than DDR (I guess I know why now). The extra price of ram more than tipped the price/performance to AMD's side. I have never went back to intel because I know AMD well, and I still think the price is right.

  • Won't somebody please think of teh children? (Score:5, Informative)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:48AM (#13922366)
    Let's see: Rambus [wikipedia.org] vs the companies [wikipedia.org] who actually make the memory.

    Well, at least the sharks do something useful, which is more than I can say for the lampreys.

  • The IT sector is in a shambles (Score:3, Insightful)

    by almound ( 552970 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:51AM (#13922370) Homepage
    For years has there even been any discussion on /. about major innovation in enterprise-level server hardware? If so, it passed by quickly ... things are certainly not percolating like seven (or even five years ago) during the innovation wars between Compaq and Dell.

    Now, /. discussion topics are on a par with the tabloids, except that instead of aliens from Mars we read about some slightly fresher Linux flavor. I used to come here to get the industry bleeding edge, and now I get reports about the latest revision of five year-old video games.

    My point? Stick with the video games, guys. Don't bother with Rambus shannanigans. Your caring public is gone. Whoever can hang onto an IT job now will have that same job for the next twenty years. (And they'll still be working with the same equipment, probably ... the way IT budgets are going). Is this a main streaming, or what?!

    More like a rigor mortus, actually.
    • Frankly I see a lot of innovation happening in blade servers & grids. The problem , as usual, is the software, not the hardware. Software seems to lag the hardware innovations by years. Clusters are only now (the past 5 years) becoming really viable.

  • The good, the bad and the ugly... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:52AM (#13922376)
    Hi,

    It seems the whole story does not contain clearly good or bad guys. But it seems that everyone involved is at least ugly ;-).

    Regards, Martin

  • Bad Behavior -- But Were the Patents Valid? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @06:53AM (#13922379) Homepage Journal
    There's talk of Rambus 'abusing' the patents -- but that doesn't make sense to me. I thought that was the whole point of patents; for a limited time (17 years?) you get to be the only one to do whatever it is that you've patented.

    If Rambus really patented the stuff, it doesn't really matter whether or not they manufactured anything; that's not how patent law works. But, if you force me to be Talmudic -- I'm sure Rambus can quote a single RAM part at a price of $100 million.

    Were their patents crap? If their patents were valid, why shouldn't they've gotten paid? It sounds like they actually developed the technology, unlike some firms (the vultures that just buy up the patents of failed companies and then start suing).

    I'm all for chaning the law to suit public policy better, but assuming we've got the laws that we've got, I don't see how "Rambus is bad" translates into "ignore their patents." If you do that, they may as well vanish, as they don't do anything but make IP.

    Also, just so you don't think I'm a member of the Rambus Anti-Defamation League, I don't have a dog in this fight: I don't work for them, knowingly own their stock, etc.

    • If Rambus really patented the stuff, it doesn't really matter whether or not they manufactured anything; that's not how patent law works.

      I'm sure Rambus have a lot of patents that are valid for RDRAM - their version of RAM. But like oh so many companies they were greedy and tried to get license fees for every modern RAM chip. Those claims were shot down in court, IIRC. RAM manufacturers didn't exactly approve of that, RDRAM was mostly ignored or sold at absurd prices and DDR RAM came flying past. People don
    • There's talk of Rambus 'abusing' the patents -- but that doesn't make sense to me. I thought that was the whole point of patents; for a limited time (17 years?) you get to be the only one to do whatever it is that you've patented.

      I think the issue is they tried to get their patented algorithms into a memory standard, which would have required everyone who wanted to make ram to license their patents, which seems unfair. By all means, use your patented methods to make your ram 3x faster than everyone else's,

      • The other thing was that they agreed that the standard would allow use of any of the companies patents, (some confusion here, either verbally or written; I've not dug around enough to find out for certain.) made their own standard, and then started suing users of the other standard (DDR).

        Not to mention, RDRAM performs like shit for most things. It was 'faster' in the sense that it had more bandwidth, but the latencies were huge compared to PC133 or DDR, which if one will notice how much an integrated mem

    • Re:Bad Behavior -- But Were the Patents Valid? (Score:4, Informative)

      by jejones ( 115979 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @10:37AM (#13923590) Journal
      The thing is that they were in JEDEC, the consortium where companies decide on standards for things like RAM. JEDEC rules are set up to prohibit what Rambus tried to do, i.e. get stuff that they'd patented written into the standards, and once everyone is committed to it, say "Surprise! We hold the patents to X, Y, Z, so all your profit are belong to us!"
    • The problem is largely one of patent quality. One important test is, 'were the inventions that they patented non-obvious?" The problem with that test is that it is entirely subjective, and so the USPTO seems to have combined it with another important test, that of prior art. Prior art for the USPTO means, "is there already a patent that covers this idea." If there isn't, then the chances are (from a patent examination standpoint) the patent is both non-obvious and there is no significant prior art. Any
    • The d-ram companies got together to pick a next standard. Rambus pushed hard for one in particular, and the others went along. As soon as the ink was dry setting the standard, Rambus pulled out a patent for the standard. Generally talks like this include an explicit clause that disallows using a patented standard, but there was no such clause on these talks.

      So the other firms got together without rambus and said screw this we aren't paying obscene licensing fees. They chose another standard. They sued rambu
    • I may be remembering incorrectly, and lack the interest to go look it up, but if IRC rambus went to JEDEC, saw what was being proposed for the standards, then ran straight to the USPTO and filed patents on key concepts. They then proceeded to try and extort the industry with those patents, which were eventually shot down.

  • Wow (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) <amphigory@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:02AM (#13922393)
    Samsung, Infineon and Hynix have all admitted to fixing prices, they're now lawsuits from Rambus They ARE? Wow, what a transformation! I knew confession was good for the soul, but ... wow.

    • Re:Wow (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Thats nothing! Once, I was driving down the road, and I suddenly turned into a grocery store parking lot!

      I got better.

  • In case you're forgotten (Score:5, Informative)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @07:11AM (#13922411)
    Intel wanted everybody to move to RDRAM, and tried their best, in their quiet, shy retiring way, to get all the motherboard manufacturers to switch. It was the high-end motherboard buyers (you know, the type who read Tom's Hardware every day) who refused to have anything to do with RDRAM, and cost was the least of their considerations. That's why DDR won, even as the prices were rising.

    • (you know, the type who read Tom's Hardware every day)


      Yes I know the type. Rabid fanboys with strong opinions on everything, and no clue in sight. hey, that almost reminds me of /. !
  • This has been going on since the last US RAM company went bankrupt in 1991 or so. I remember selling computers at the time and 640Kb went from $35 to $900 overnight when the last US RAM company went bankrupt. It took windows coming out before it went down signifigantly. There was a slight drop in ram prices when a US company returned to the market after Bush I added an import tax to RAM. All the RAM companies controlled by one country that is well known for playing games. Is anyone surprised that price fixi

    • Re:Price fixing in RAM (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jake Diamond ( 770429 ) <jdwhite@NoSpam.hotmail.com> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @08:01AM (#13922576)
      There still is a US DRAM manufacturer. Micron [micron.com] is still alive and kicking (and has been continuously in business since 1978), selling to consumers via the Crucial [crucial.com] brand. There was price-fixing (which Micron doesn't seem to be completely innocent of, either), but one thing to keep in mind is that RDRAM, even if it weren't patented, required approximately 5-7 extra mask steps to create, as compared to DDR DRAM. In the cut-throat world of DRAM manufacturing, where every penny counts, this is a deal-breaker. Samsung was able to make money off RDRAM only because it was so expensive. Was it illegal for these companies to team up and kick down RDRAM? Yes. Am I sad to see it go? No way.
  • Since the collusion was to keep prices artificially low to "squeeze out" Rambus (if that's what it turns out to be), then this is one of those cases where the consumer benefitted from oligopolist collusion. Rambus deserves to die. They are the SCO of the RAM business.
  • Anticompetitive practice legislation was designed to punish cartels who raised prices artificially, not ones which forced them down. In many industries the way this issue is handled is by meetings in standards bodies such as ISO and the IEC. Representatives of manufacturers (and governments) get together to agree on standards - norms- for product types, and this is perfectly legal because it is intended to promote safety and to enable easier consumer choice and so lower prices. And at these meetings manufac
    • "Anticompetitive practice legislation was designed to punish cartels who raised prices artificially, not ones which forced them down"

      Actually legislation was enacted to prevent anticompetitive business practices in general. This can include collusion to raise prices or keep them high (like the airline industry (1982, Braniff Airlines & American Airlines), or collusion to lower prices, when the effect of lowering the prices is to drive a competitor out of business. In the long run, such collusion is

  • Here is the deal... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jambarama ( 784670 ) <jambarama@gmaCOUGARil.com minus cat> on Tuesday November 01, 2005 @09:54AM (#13923249) Homepage Journal
    This is what happened in brief. The four companies got together to pick a next standard. Rambus pushed hard for one in particular, and the others went along. As soon as the ink was dry, Rambus pulled out a patent. Generally talks like this include a clause that disallows using a patented standard, but there was no such clause on these talks.

    So the other three firms got together without rambus and said screw this we aren't paying obscene licensing fees. They chose another standard. They sued rambus for pulling the dirty patent trick. Rambus sued because the other three wouldn't deal with rambus.

    The price fixing scheme just happens to be at the same time. That is the third lawsuit going on in the dram industry now. They all had fixed prices sometime ago, it was this falling out over standards that got Hynix to squeal to the DOJ on the price fixing.

    There now you don't have to RTFA.
  • Ok, this is the company that through shady back room deals tried to force an (at BEST) no-gain technology that they patented based on JDEC information that everyone involved with was legally bound to NOT patent.

    Rambus can go to hell. They can go to hell and they can die.
  • does this mean i can upgrade to 1GB from 256MB for under $200 USD now?? Probably not. Why didn't this judgment happen in 2001-2002 when it would have done some good?
  • Did you check out all the reader comments for that story? They sound like they were all written by Rambus PR flacks....hilarious. It's all about "getting to the bottom of the conspiracy", and "there's more truth to be told! Keep digging!"

    Yeah! Keep digging into how Rambus tried to get the industry to settle on a technology it had filed patents for. As if competitors would ever agree to a technology that one of them had already patented.

    "Oh, you want us to use your technology and then reveal your patent
  • What a surprise - Company X fails to bring a new technology to market because its competitors lower their prices in unison, so they sulk, and file lawsuits.

    If you can't win by offering consumers better stuff and / or better prices, I suppose you can always 'win' with a crowd of fork-tongued lawyers.

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