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DRAM Industry vs RAMBUS
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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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.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
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.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
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.
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.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
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.
Babar
Um, know thy enemy?
Meow?
Windows is the Acme of computing -- in the Wile E. Coyote sense.
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!
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
You forgot the animated paperclip ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
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.
-Michael
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.
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Open mind, insert foot.
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.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
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.
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.
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
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
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
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!
Free Hans!
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.
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 is a good short history of Patent Law in the US.
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?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
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???
Have you compiled your kernel today??
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.
Beware the Whyte Wolf.
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...
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.
Thou shalt not spend more on patent lawyers than thou hast spent on R&D.. *grin*
I think that sums up it nicely!
..don't panic
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.
Babar