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Rambus Slammed For 'Judge Shopping'
Lawrence Person writes: "Acoording to this story on Semiconductor Business News, International Trade Comission Judge Administrative Law Judge Sidney Harris reprimanded Rambus for "blatant judge shopping" in response to Rambus withdrawing its suit against Hyundai after Harris, known as a tough judge, was assigned to the case. Harris also ruled "that if Rambus in the future ever filed a new synchronous patent infringement case against Hyundai, or even any other firm, such a petition must be assigned to his court if he is able to hear it.""
What does the fact that people actually shop for judges (for a good reason) say about the justice system? Shouldn't all judges deal out the same punishment for similar crimes? Shouldn't they all be equal? Justice is blind but she sure can smell that money being wafted under her nose.
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These kind of tactics are typical of rambus. They know and intel know that, right now, the technology if the RIMM's ( sux to get rimmed by rambus:) ) is inferior to SDRAM's technology. Now rambus's only way of making money is to sue for more money..
Rambus is an IP only company. its kind of a smart way to do things cuz they could have a small lab for their physicists (sic?) and a small office for theyr ceo's. they have almost no overhead. If they win any suits for licence fee's thats just more money to them and all they have to do is sit there and collect it. all they have to pay for is lawyers.
Now that intel wants to ditch them they are under more pressure to have their income assured with these licencing fees. Too bad for them they ran acrosss Harris, especially now that they seemd to have pissed him off.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
RAMBUS would be better off doing some engineer-shopping to develop a truely competetive product to DDR-SDRAM.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
This rule has been violated by Microsoft, Napster, and now Rambus. In Microsoft's case, it was doing such things as creating a video that was later conceded to be a stitched-together fake. In Napster's case, it was the remarkably two-faced performance of its executives on copyrights, and also the company's lack of a plan for making money ("What kind of a business is this?", one can imagine Ms. Patel saying). And now it's Rambus's turn to displease a judge by backing out exactly when one was assigned to its case.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
No person would reasonably be able and permitted to do what Rambus has set out to do: hold an industry hostage by use of the courts as a weapon. Since Rambus, a corporation, is not only capable of doing this but has the fixed intent of using the legal system for vengeance instead of justice (not even vengeance really: for self-interested gain), it stands to reason that the judge will act in the interests of justice.
I only hope it contributes to a growing realisation that corporations are not individuals, are not remotely on a level with individuals in power and influence, and should be disenfranchised before they end up allowed to practice law themselves, and finally compete with humans to become judges. Is that what you meant when you said a corporation is the same as an individual and entitled to the same rights?
It might seem entertaining to picture Judge Hyundai stomping on Rambus, until you think about what Judge Microsoft, Judge Firestone, and Judge RIAA would be up to.
Corporations are legal fictions made up out of the rules of the game. UNMAKE THEM!
Of course, they say this now after their failed technical and marketing attempts with RAMBUS technology. Intel lost alot of face. Of course, if those things hadn't happened to Intel, Intel would probably singing psalms to Rambus.
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
FYI, the actual patent is for a valid memory read/write occuring on either the leading or trailing edge of a timing cycle. Hence "dual" data rate - you can R/W twice every clock instead of once.
Most people will realize that this does not exactly double the rate but it does help a whole lot.
The patent is still bogus (though I'm sure you probably already knew that). ASIC designers have been using both edges of a clock for quite a loooonnnng time. Is Rambus now going to sue ASIC houses as well? Why is using posedge and negedge clocks in SDRAM any more trivial than using them in an ASIC? I certainly don't know of any patents filed for ASICs using both clocks. Or microprocessors for that matter. Or PALs, or FPGAs, or organgutans, or breakfast cereals, or lima bean...
It's just a ridiculous patent (shock - a stupid patent passed by the USPTO!) from a ridiculous company.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Rambus did what any patentee who cares about its patents would do when informed that Judge Harris would be hearing the case: it exercised its absolute right to withdraw the complaint. 19 CFR 210.10(a)(5)(i) says "The complainant may withdraw the complaint AS A MATTER OF RIGHT at ANY TIME before the Commission votes on whether to institute an investigation." (emphasis added).
Rambus was well within its rights, and I would counsel any client of mine who was the patentee to do the same. Any client who was a defendent before Judge Harris I would advise to cheer loudly.
A few facts on Judge Harris:
1) He is NOT an "article 3" federal judge like a District Court Judge. He's an employee of the ITC who has been hired to act as an "administrative law judge." His rulings are appealed to the full Commission, not to federal court. Only the Commission's decision is appealed to Federal Court.
2) Judge Harris' overriding characteristic is an extreme hostility to patents. I've been before him a number of times and he has upheld a patent precisely once.
3) So extreme is his hostility to patents that he once "sua sponte" struck down a patent as invalid, even when the defendant had not even asserted the patent was invalid. When this decision reached the Federal Circuit, he was summarily reversed, and has since acquired the nickname "Sua Sponte Sid."
4) He's advancing in years and mercifully will retire soon.
5) The decision being quoted here is a classic illustration of just how bad he is, since he has no authority whatsoever to inquire into the motives of a complainant. Remember also it's just his pique that lawyers are beginning to get wise to his bias.
6) The Commision (to which Judge Harris' rulings are appealed) has reversed his findings of invalidity a number of times.
7) The fact that RMBS' lawyers were astute enough to withdraw the complaint illustrates again that RMBS is willing to retain the very best legal counsel and is another reason for confidence that it will ultimately prevail.
ITC
Rambus claims to hold a patent over all SDRAM and DDR SDRAM chips produced. Anywhere. Rambus's goal is to force companies to pay fees to Rambus in order raise the cost of all non-Rambus memory. Rambus is just too weak to compete on the open market. Hyundai is one of the SDRAM producers that haven't caved in. Micron is another. Some others have caved though.
But it is clearly the "will of the people" that Rambus suceed, for it has been decided that Rambus is better and faster, so no doubt it would win the "popular vote", so I don't understand why this judge wouldn't allow Rambus to trample any opposition. I mean, come on, the people want Rambus, don't they?
Information is the catalyst for revolution
Really now... would you buy the first judge you looked at? Clearly, it's wise to shop around a little bit first. Compare prices. Contrast features. Make sure the judge you buy is a value.
Judges make procedural decisions like this all the time. What evidence will be allowed, which witnesses, cameras or no cameras, plaintiff pays fees if defendant wins, or the reverse. In most cases there's a clear beneficiary. The whole point of this process is that an impartial judge takes a case, and lawyers try not to piss off the judge, so they stay away from borderline stuff that might give an unfair advantage. The system balances out.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
A corporation cannot claim 5th amendment - AFAIK constitutional rights in the US extend only to humans - corporations can have arbitrary laws forced on them. :)
How many Rambust stocks do you own?
In any case, they _were_ allowed to drop the case. So your first statement is moot.
What they're _not_ allowed to do is to keep refiling over and over again until they get a judge they like. They're free to refile... they're just going to end up with the same judge.
If they actually weren't judge-shopping, then none of this is even an issue for them.
Could someone explain how could a judge have this kind of authority?
Hadn't you heard that judges have more power than God? It's true.
More seriously, a judge with a valid reason to suspect a pattern of frivolous litigation and forum shopping is within his rights to demand that all further similar cases from the same litigant be taken to his court.
This is not a common remedy, but it is not unheard of either. It is especially likely when a litigant shows a pattern of such conduct, and is meant to defeat the tactic.
An instance I can think of is that the famously irascible Judge Manuel Real of the Central District Court of California (most famous for ordering Larry Flynt chucked in a psychiatric prison for spitting at him and showering him with obscenities) once ordered the crime cult of Scientology to bring all cases in the District to his court and no other. He also had a Scientology cult attorney chucked in prison that same day for contempt.
Other ramifications:
Intel has been completely disgusted by the lawsuit. Craig Barrett from Intel said "We hoped we were partners with a company that would concentrate on technology innovation rather than seeking to collect a toll from other companies..."
-B