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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.
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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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.