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Rambus Gets Toshiba To Sign Patent Concession
Modular writes " This press release Toshiba Signs Patent License Agreement With Rambus For SDRAM & DDR SDRAM Memory and Controllers surprised me. I didn't know that Rambus held patents for SDRAM and DDR SDRAM. It seems like they hold cards on both sides of the SDRAM vs RDRAM issue. Toshiba already had an agreement to produce RDRAM. Did they sign this to strengthen Rambus claims to SDRAM technology? Are these patents pending and contested by other memory manufacturers?" Check out the tech report for an analysis of this - it doesn't look good, I fear.
I for one welcome this shifty, greedy maneuver. If RAMBUS does manage to corner the market on volatile RAM technologies, then the computer industry will thrash around violently looking for a way out. And it will be about time.
We've become sloppy and trained to the notion that memory should be divided into segments varying by speed, size, volatility, and cost. We all spend months in college or in the field learning about the subtle differences between L1 caching, L2 caching, main memory, hard drive memory, ROM, and the trillion variations of RAM. We don't see the forest for the trees: this model of data management is the single most crucial hindrance to the advancement of computer science in our entire industry.
I for one would love to see a technology like the magram become viable through hard research and buckets of funding. Can you imagine the virtues of a system that could boast cheap, fast, large, and non-volatile memory in one consolidated chunk?
Imagine how intelligent an OS design such as the orthogonally persistent EROS operating system would become if the distinction between disk and memory were eliminated at low cost.
So, while I fear the short term repercussions of what it would mean for a company as shoddy as RAMBUS to gain broad control over the hardware market, in the long term such a development might just shake us out of our doldrums. Which can only be a good thing.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
I'm not surprised that, of all the memory manufacturers out there, Toshiba settled first. Back in Nov '99, they settled a $2.1 Billion dollar class-action lawsuit over a minor floppy drive problem.
I recall that some analysts explained that Toshiba settled because they were, afraid of the potential of a runaway lawsuit that could have produced far greater losses (which boggles the imagination). The same lawyers (who walked away with an obscene pile in this case) have also gone after other companies (Such as Compaq) that had similar floppy drive problems, but in these cases the accused companies have decided to fight it out.
This all dates back to Spring of 1990, when Rambus filed their original patent. (TTBOMK) This patent was abandoned and continued in 1992. Eventually the 1992 patent issued, but not before several more continuations and other legalese things like that were also filed.
In the early 1990's, the SDRAM standards were being hammered out in JEDEC. Rambus was a silent participant at those early meetings. Eventually, Rambus quite attending JEDEC meetings, somewhere around 1992 or 1993, IIRC. Many of the salient aspects of the SDRAM had been settled by this time, though not hammered into their final form.
The 1990 patent was abandoned, and went without note. The 1992 continuation issued without note, as well, since it rather specifically defined an early form of the Rambus architecture.
The continuations of the 1992 patent are the things causing all of the current fury. They reference the teachings of the original 1990 patent application, and extract new claims related to the current SDR and DDR SDRAM designs.
It's interesting to note that with continuations, office actions, and the like, you can extend patent protection well beyond the intended term. Your protection begins the day you file, and extends 17 years after the date your patent is granted. Recent patent reforms have fixed this somewhat, so your protection is 20 years after filing or 17 years after issue. I don't know if this reform addresses the issue of a string of continuations being used to extend patent life.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
A business process consisting of utilitzing the lameness of the USPTO staff to create increased revenue without doing a whole lot of work.
Prior Art
Just about every patent ever filed. But who cares.
Detailed Description
but what would stop a company from doing the same thing to SDRAM or whatever else RAMBUS is liscencing that tons of IBM clones did to IBM?
What most people are unaware of is that while IBM appeared to be getting "slaughtered" by clone makers, IBM was reaping billions of dollars in license fees for their patented technologies. Most of this was intentionally kept very hush-hush, the license included an NDA. You could not even admit that you had spoken with IBM regarding their patents.
Yes, the ISA bus came from an Intel periodical. Yes, the CGA graphics adapter came from a Motorola periodical. Yes, the trick of using the keyboard controller as an MMU was also public knowledge, but there were *Many* aspects of the original PC, XT, and AT, that were patented IBM technology.
People get the impression that IBM somehow got screwed. They made out like bandits, and enjoyed every minute of it.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
on sending data to/from a memory chip with both edges of the clock. At the time, it was called "toggle mode", and the patent predates Rambus by 3 or 4 years.
Rambus has patented two slightly different aspects of this: First, they do it with two clocks. (differential? which DDR SDRAM uses.) Second, they have a slightly different receiver arrangement. They use two complete receiver/latch circuits, where the IBM patent used a receiver/buffer and two latches.
Rambus also has a patent on adding a DLL to the mix.
Far more serious than these is their patent on the "CAS Latency Register" used in both SDR and DDR SDRAMS. This is a technique used YEARS before on other chips, but this is the first time it has been placed on a memory chip.
The history of this whole mess is badly checkered, and beyond this I really can't comment. Besides, I don't want to burn the phosphors off my tube and blister the keycaps by delivering my true feelings on this issue.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.