NEC Signs Rambus Royalty Agreement

Zarquon writes: "NEC has agreed to pay licensing fees and royalties to Rambus for production of SDRAM, according to this TechWeb article. They're the fourth company to give in to Rambus; Hitachi, Toshiba, and Oki have already been signed to similar agreements. If you're unfamiliar with the Rambus patent fiasco, LostCircuits has a good synopsis of the situation." Ah, yes -- beat them in the courtroom, not the marketplace.

Comments

Re:Enforcing pantents...

[dieman]

Nononono. Your thinking Trademark Law.

Re:Beat them in the courtroom, not the marketplace

[FFFish]

Microsoft:
* used anti-competitive licensing terms
* disallowed customers from using other products
* forced customers to accept terms that were harmful to them
* broke previous rulings regulating their behaviour

Rambus:
* patented a bunch of ideas that are generally regarded as not being particularly original
* demanded license fees from RAM manufacturers
* got what they asked for
* will need to defend the validity of their patents in court against Micron's claims
* may ultimately lose ownership of the patents and have to give the money back

The point is that Rambus hasn't broken any laws, while Microsoft has. One has to approve of lawbreakers ending up in court.

Sure, Hemos is still out to lunch: Rambus isn't using the courts at all to get what they want. Micron is. And because the case hasn't even made it to the courtroom, you can't say Rambus is winning in the courtroom.

Different beasts, Microsoft and Rambus. One has a viable product, thumped the marketplace, and engaged in anticompetitive practices. The other has no viable product, got thumped in the marketplace, and is engaged in dubious patent licensing.

With any luck, both will receive a comeuppance.

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Read the article before commenting!

[EMIce]

This is for all you posters who are coming in defense of Rambus. Please PLEASE read the @#! article before making generalized comments. And these articles are being modded up. Yeash.

1. Rambus joined JEDEC, a consortium of companies devoted to sharing R&D work and forming industry standards to keep costs down for everyone

2. Rambus files for patents after joining the JEDEC, without disclosing the fact. These patents go directly against the industry standards the JEDEC is trying to establish.

3. Rambus is now using this information learned at meetings to "extend and prosecute pending applications to target the latest industry standards proposed in these meetings."

Rambus, while doing nothing illegal, acted in a very misleading way. It sat at these JEDEC meetings, when in fact it had conflicting interests which are now being used to undermine the whole market and open standards.

The unpopular view

[Proteus]

At the risk of being marked Troll or Flamebait (despite my intentions), I do have to point out something. I don't like what RAMBUS is doing, but the fact that so many companies are reaching settlements seems to indicate that they have some reasonably strong legal footing for these suits.

That being said, the comment "beat 'em in the courtroom, not in the market" is uncalled for. These laws are often abused, but they do have a valid purpose -- if someone makes money froms something you invent, you deserve to get a piece of the action. The patent laws are designed to ensure this.

I don't know all the details of RAMBUS' claim, but if they were granted a reasonable and valid patent, then a whole lot of very smart lawyers are settling for a reason: RAMBUS just might be in the right here.

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Beat them in the courtroom, not the marketplace.

[LordNimon]

Microsoft is said to have "beaten" other operating systems in the marketplace, so now the DOJ is trying to beat them in the courtroom. And Slashdot approves.

I'm glad to see that Slashdot is upholding its proud tradition of double standards.

And before you moderate this post as Troll or Flamebait, keep in mind what I'm trying to say. I'm making a relevant comment on the story headline. The point behind the story is that Rambus is winning in the courtroom, not the marketplace. However, that by itself is not necessarily a bad thing, because alternate OS advocates (i.e. 99% of Slashdot readers) are hoping to use that same courtroom to even out the marketplace for operating systems.
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Let Hyundai and Micron Resolve It

[Dr. Dew]

Seems the most expedient course for a company now that a couple of rivals are getting down into the suit thing; in the meantime, NEC doesn't have to tie up resources. If Rambus wins the suits, NEC's tushies are covered, and if Rambus loses, it's toast anyway by the New Rule Of Business, which requires either R&D or lawyers.

(if !(tech) & !(legal); then Corp.dead).

I really liked this one, though:

"NEC was quick to recognize the potential of Rambus as a technology partner, and we've achieved significant successes as a result of our close partnership"

Universal Translator:
"NEC flinched when we showed them the lawsuit we drew up featuring their name."

Re:Rambus! Ha!

[ColdGrits]

Sadly, I fear you are mistaken.

You see, RAMBUS are not only claiming patents on Rambus memory, but they are ALSO claiming patents and royalties on ALL memory - SDRAM, DDR-RAM etc!

So even if no-one buys Rambus RAM, if Rambus get their way they will still received billions in royalties from everyone else.

This truely sucks.

Micron, however, are not bending over (unlike all Far Eastern memory manufacturers) - Go Micron! :)