Rambus Could Reap Millions In Patent Settlements 82
RedEaredSlider writes "Rambus, a designer of semiconductor chips, won a long-running patent battle with NVIDIA, but that dispute is not the only one the company is involved in — and the upcoming decisions could mean millions in additional revenue. Besides the NVIDIA decision, Rambus is involved in a suit with Hynix Semiconductor that will be heard in October. In that case, Hynix had originally sued Rambus in 2000, but Rambus counter-sued. Hynix lost, and appealed. The parties will appear before the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in October. A judgment in Rambus's favor would be worth at least $397 million, according to the company's general counsel, Tom Lavelle."
Re:To keep up (Score:4, Interesting)
ATI is going to want to get sued in about six months for $500 million.
Maybe they'll make the mistake of suing IBM.
Re:Rambus... (Score:1, Interesting)
That's one side of the story. The others side was the other guys were the world's largest illegal cartel (according to the US DOJ) and were out to rip off Rambus.
Most slashtards only know about 1/10th of the story, because they are ugly help-desk nerds who only get their IT news from slashdot.
Re:Rambus... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Rambus... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Rambus... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Rambus... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not sure how JEDEC works...
Re:Not quite (Score:3, Interesting)
Holy rewriting of history. Lemme quote the original FTC Commission report [ftc.gov] on the case (pdf):
Yes Rambus had some patents pending before they approached JEDEC. But the whole point of being a member of JEDEC was to disclose those patents and negotiate licenses for the patents before the technologies were codified as a standard. That way the other members could decide, with all information in hand, which memory technology they would make the standard. Rambus deliberately failed to do this and did not disclose what they were patenting, essentially tricking the others into creating a memory standard which incorporated their patented technology so they could later threaten them with patent infringement lawsuits. They event went so far as to take ideas other JEDEC members revealed with the understanding that it wouldn't be patented so everyone would be free to use it, and incorporated them into their own patents.
The reason Rambus "won" was because even though the FTC found that they violated JEDEC's policies, the courts still found that the patents were valid. Normally when you write a contract, you're supposed to include