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Rambus to Attempt to Collect Royalties on Chipsets
Datafage writes "According to this article, RAMBUS is going to go after the manufacturers of all chipsets that interface with RAM, including Intel, AMD, Via, and presumably video chipset manufacturers in their relentless pursuit of royalties for their ill-gotten patents. This begs the question: Will they ever stop?"
this is in some ways a bigger obstacle to growth than M$ ever was. I think it is about time that someone brought these "peoples" attention to the DOJ. Normally I don't advocate government intervention but in this cause the USPTO created the monster and now either they or the DOJ needs to bring it down. I don't know if it would hold up (IANAL) but the best case I can think of is that this is going to drive prices on something that has become central to the US economy through the roof. Aso really sounds to be like they are trying their best to be a monopoly. I don't really know. Anybody else have any good ideas?
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
They just can't stop going after 'royalties' for their patents. It is interesting to see them turn on Intel now. Perhaps Intel will grow tired of their yapping and slap them down once and for good.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Do I understand this correctly in that they are taking on an entire industry? This is a do-or-die situation for Rambus now. Either they win their lawsuits, own the entire industry, gain legitimacy and generally make their stockholders cream in their pants, or they lose everything and get laughed out of business. Right now, with the state of patent law, it looks like it could go either way, where in reality, it shouldn't really be a question at all.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Fanmakers should collect royalties for every AMD sold.
I patent this,
You patent that.
We patent the same,
in search of fame.
We neglect the consumer,
Greed becomes our leader,
and the people will rebel.
Sounds like they have so little money from the awfully made products that they have to squeeze every last drop they can into their accounts before filing for chapter 11.
I am !amused.
If you read their latest earnings statement here, you'll notice something even more telling:
...no additional licenses for SDRAM-compatible ICs will be signed, that prices of RDRAMs will remain high compared to SDRAMs and that litigation and building costs will exceed the Company's plans.
They're perfectly aware that nobody else is going to license their chipsets, and they plan on suing anybody and everybody to make money.
What's your damage, Heather?
Any patent attorneys in the crowd?
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
I assume Intel has patents on their processor - I write code that interfaces with Intel processors. I assume Microsoft has patents on their API/OS - I write code that interfaces with their API/OS. I better call my attourney!
if we are all really that bothered by rambus, perhaps we need to find a way to deflate them. i am reminded of etoy.com's successful campaign against etoys.com.
# cat .sig
geek friendly VPS's and free API enabled DNS : zerigo.com
How many reasons do you need to realize that the patents are wrong right down to the concept.
This is just another outragous result of the flawed thinking that intellectual monopolies are okay.
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Rambus should just go ahead and try to patent copper. It should be obvious that our patent system DOES NOT WORK right now.
This is exactly what happens when the staff of a technology company is 50% lawyers. I suspect that this is only the beginning of a era of corporations who produce nothing, design nothing, contribute nothing, but profit from continuous litigiousness, all because of stupid US law and legal practice.
It's a huge blow to progress in general (RAMBUS RAM is a good example). Someone has to stop this kind of thing before dozens of companies are all trying the same thing, wrecking the technology market because of greed.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
Why all of a sudden they whip some patents out, how long has the industry been using this technology? Patent or not, rambus is nuts to think they are going to get royalties.
Why do we kill people that kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
I think the answer could be that they are being offered favourable terms to do so. It could be in Rambus' interest to play it like this, because it provides some news which is favourable to shareholders. Of course at the moment there is a particular need for this, with the rumours that Intel might ditch RDRAM.
What really bugs me is the bit about how Rambus participated in open standards meetings and apparently took part in creating those standards without mentioning its patents to anyone... the Conspiracy Monger in me has a new way to get rich:
Ahh, I see it all so clearly. now, all I need is a terriffic idea, a patent, enough status to be asked to participate on a standards panel, and a team of lawyers.
+++++++++++++++++++++
The Digital Sorceress
Ya right, this is some big ass spin here, he's trying to give Intel a way back. I bet it doesn't work
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Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
I hope that these morons get beaten at their own game. There's no nullification quite like having a judge call your company a legion of whining carpetbaggers.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
At least Microsoft makes an attempt at making better software (and with Win2K, succeeded). All that Rambus does right now is play the court market. Judge shopping, heavy interpretation, blatant greed; will it never end?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Hehe, it's like a chihuahua yapping away at Godzilla. Once that overgrown lizard sees the little cur, STOMP! Rambus pancake!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
...on everything down to 7400 chips. I mean, they can be used to interface with memory, right?
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
All I can do right now is hope that the combined wrath of Intel, AMD, and VIA will send Rambus into the pits of hell (or maybe the front page of f*ckedcompany.com).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Do feel free to take out in the back alley and, ah, solve the Rambus problem for us all, once and for all...
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
If you read the whole article, you'll notice that Rambus and Intel are still sleeping together (Intel still holds a share in Rambus.) Is this a sort of "good cop, bad cop" kinda thing? Rambus makes a monopoly grab for anything that moves an electron, and Intel is quietly excluded from paying the royalties... Big business is out of control.
Monkey lover...
By letting everyone (Intel AMD Via etc.) start producing, Rambus failed to protect their patent. Surely, they then lose the right to this patent?
The rather extreme efforts of Cray Research to balance signal paths in order to allow increased clock speed without loss of signal coherency was also studied.
I don't see anything in the Rambus patent descriptions that don't fall back to common design techniques in use over 10 years ago.
I don't get it. Why isn't Rambus in court on charges of theft or fraud? They claim ownership of design principles that are not only normal practice, but that were created over a decade before their company existed!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
A technology company called "RAMBUS" is claiming to have a patent on DNA. This parent has just been approved by the USPTO.
The company has set its licensing fee to $1 for each DNA string, but offers a quantity rebate and at $10M per individual. The company CEO has been quoted saying "We will protect our IP and will go after any offender". RAMBUS has already asked for a restraining order against 100 million people and will ask the judge to restrain them from using DNA.
When asked the reason for its sudden interest in nuclear technology, a RAMBUS official said: "This is in the line of protecting our IP and making people know we're serious about it. Remember, living free is stealing".
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Besides, Intel's lawyers are great big boys and girls who want what's best for Intel. And what's best for Intel? How about stopping AMD's surge in market share until they get the P4 working?
Given that, here's how the scenario plays out
[puts on Great Karnak turban]
- Rambus sues Intel and a dozen other board makers.
- They settle their lawsuit with Intel for fifty cents.
- They take everybody else to court or settle for millions.
- Intel keeps its cash. Everybody else is short of cash.
- Intel finally gets a P4 out of their fabs that isn't broken.
- Intel leverages its cash to build Threldor, King of Fabs.
- Intel leverages the rest of its cash to go after market share by selling under cost.
And then Intel swats Rambus like a fly.Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen
Wouldn't it be interesting if major companies were to get together and create a new standard, leaving Rambus out in the cold?
For all we know, this may be the beginning of the end for SDRAM.
"The good thing about Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs."
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
We've created a monster....
IANAL... But I play one on
It's all shades of rather dark grey. to me. Like the microsoft trial, i'd feel a lot more sympathetic for the poor victims if they weren't a) voracious transnationals and b) kicking themselves that they didn't think of doing it first.
by the way,
> They accuse Rambus of subverting the Joint
> Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC)
> process when the company kept its patents on
> SDRAM secret while attending JEDEC meetings
> intended to establish an open industry standard.
Can anyone throw more light on this? I haven't hear the jedec part before. Sounds tangential to the patent question, at best, but it's worthy of Bismarck, or at least Nixon, if true.
Only because they've got Linux snapping at their heels. I doubt Win2K would have been anything like as good otherwise, and it still has problems in my experience, such as the need to completely redesign your network if you want to take full advantage of it.
It doesn't really matter what Rambus does at this point. Rambus's major partner, Intel, is jumping ship and they know that the can't compete with DDR. Sure they'll get money from royalties, but all this litigation must be draining their pockets. Not to mention lack of sales. Once DDR comes out along with DDR motherboards, Rambus will probably disappear.
tap 2 blue, I counter that
I'm impressed that your's is the only post to have noticed the error. Usually there are a dozen pedantic know-it-alls who point out misspellings and other such gaffs before the First Poster boys are done. I guess Saturdays are slow.
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
...if Intel divests all of its Rambus shares. Throw them out in the gutter. Even the threat of such a divestiture would have the whole board at Rambus quaking in their boots. It would maim their stock value, and drastically reduce market confidence.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
They're not the only one. For example, Qualcomm is doing the same thing, with considerable success.
And arguably Qualcomm's patents were issued in the face of prior art as well; CDMA had been used in military communications for some time. The U.S. isn't about to "fix" this, since it's a place that U.S. companies have an edge. Welcome to 21st century high-tech big business.
And by the way, Taco, "beg the question" doesn't mean "invite the question". If you had taken a philosophy course at Hope College you would know that :).
--Seen
"I used to be a dilettante. Then I thought I'd try something else for a while."
What do you think Intel, A multibillion company with money to burn, is going to do once they get hit with these royalities. Keep in mind that Intel is not too happy at Rambus right now, especially becasue they will not reliquinsh the royalities so manufactures would more redily produce RDRAM for the P4.
When this is all said and done, Intel is going to end up buying out Rambus and releasing all the Rambus specs royality free. Why? The reason for this is obviously that if RDRAM suddently gets cheaper and more redily avaliable Intel has a lot to gain in the form of chipset and processor sales. Especially when their the only ones working with Rambus right now
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In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
How high a court would be needed to order a review of the USPO?
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This is not a political statement. This is not legal advice. It's a frick'n Slasdot post. However: I'm Running For
The expropriation of Rambus's patents is a perfectly viable option. Just as individuals had to give up their junk at a fair price during World War II so that war production could proceed, and just as farmers must often part with land today so that public works may proceed (dams, roads, whatever), Rambus could be forcibly divested of its patents so that the evolution of computer hardware can proceed with proper regard to technical merit, which is ultimately in everybody's interest. The only legitimate obstacle I foresee is that the relevant people in the US government lack the cojones to do it; they would have to move resolutely and unapologetically, but they will not. (Before dismissing that last statement, you should take a moment to read the Wired story on the Microsoft antitrust trial.)
Maybe people should send a nasty mail to poor Micron (eg), and say something like:
;)
"I'll never again buy your RAM is you don't kick RAMBUS' ass in the court!"
Might work
I know the man who invented the miniature stepping motor, which is the basis of every quartz analog clock and watch on the planet. He also invented the digital electronic watch. His name is John Hall and he lives in California.
"Executives" at the Japanese company Casio tried more than once to kill him, rather than pay him production royalties on his inventions. The closest attempt was a near-escape from being run down by a truck in Washington, DC.
The people who run RAMBUS had better watch their backs.
This is from a standard disclamer where it's customary to list all possible things that could go wrong with your company. If you don't list something and it happens, your company can be the target of a shareholder lawsuit. Therefore if there is any reasonable chance of something bad happening to the company it will be listed.
Goats the Comic Strip used a similar storyline where a corporation patented the human genome. It's quite funny, as are the rest of the strips.
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I believe in patent law, albeit not US patent law, because when finally that inspiration particle hits my brain and I have the most enormous idea that will benefit mankind and I patent a device that will relieve world suffering, cure cancer and silence forever Tony Blair I expect to be well paid for it.
(Nothing greedy, just a couple a million quid will do...say 10 million.)
On the other hand it's gotta be JUST patent law: sensible, fair and in the interest of everybody. To me patenting a chip design is fine. Licensing it is fine, provided it is generally done in a way to improve life for users - this means no nasty discrimination, Intel and Rambus. Ultimately the patent must expire within a reasonable length of time - this will ensure reasonable licensing fees ultimately.
OTOH, licensing methods of interfacing to a product? Hmmm. Bad karma.
Elgon
Rambus needs to be stopped. Everyone, but Rambus, is going to be screwed if they can pull this off. Higher prices everywhere in anything that uses a patent that Rambus owns. I wonder if my Commodore 64 still works?
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
Think about it.
....
It makes perfect sense. RAMBUS figures out it can bring people to court over patents it has filed. It figures "I can do it so I'd be stupid not to".
But wait a minute.
When we start bringing people to court because we can, we start loosing touch with the fact that going to court is serious business. We should only do it AS A LAST RECOURSE. I don't see RAMBUS running around trying to accomodate people here. Going to court is their FIRST option.
Furthermore it brings out a very serious question: While it is logically right to go to court, it's definetely morally wrong - everyone else has been sharing information on memory interfaces through an open standard.
Is this the business way of the new millenium?
Should countries sign peace treaties while preparing their guns?
Should I sue my neighbour before he sues me?
And it does make me wonder what kind of government I have when I know all too well that RAMBUS and INTEL have been lobbying sucessfully for so long
Obi Wan Celeri
"If you look at it in a fractal way, everything is related, no matter how far and how different"
Heh! I thought Rambus was Diddy Kong's bud!
Next they'll go after companies which make Software which use a lot of RAM....
LINUX companies will get away with $5 per copy sold commercially. Microsoft will have to pay $100 per copy for Windows ME because of the huge memory footprint required to boot.
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As I've always understood US patent law, they (those applying for the patent) must present the very best form of their idea to be patented, and only those things described in or are clearly derivitive of can be protected. These, as I was told as a MetE student, are two advantages under the US system. 1st the pior work of others was available to one to spring board off of. I was oft regaled with tales of emmeritus professors who whiled away their retirement researching patents for inspiration to create their better mouse trap. Alter someone's Nylon 10 to make Nylon 6 and wee, a check from du Pont. The 2nd bonus was that after the idealized form of your world changing idea was set, you could describe slight alterations or spin-off ideas, and applications. These too being the fruit of your labor are also protected. Aside from business plan patents, US patents are fairly narrow. You can't, for instance, have a general idea like memory compression and provide one example of it and then assert dominion over everything from gif to gnuzip to speed reading. Should my recollection and fuzzy estimation prove to be accurate, then there were no secret patents when they were setting standards during the colloquies. They actually did the work showing not only that their techniques were usable but how. My call, they made a sucker play, and caught some suckers. But if I was going to bitch about patent law, I would bust on the pharmicutical companies who get their R&D underwritten by the tax payers, get the monopoly power of patents, and sometimes keep other viable products from market.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
It is obvious that RAMBUS's only advance for the industry is higlighting patent laws ... it has wonderful carrer paths for individuals ...
_ 00_47.htm
... hrmmm would anyone want to develop for thier chips given that they are going after companies who are interfacing with *their* stuff?
http://www.rambus.com/general/careers/career_00
They also have a developers section
I would imagine that some of these companies <cough>Intel</cough> have pretty decent patent portfolios themselves. But other companies tend to keep them for defensive purposes only. I'm willing to bet that Intel probably has a handful of patents that Rambus is violating.
At the very least, Intel can probably dig up a couple of patents that Rambus appears to be violating, and take Rambus to court over them, and drive Rambus into the ground due to court costs alone.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
a truly quadrophonic sound API which is cross-platform. No more of this EAX crap. The angle of the speakers would be one critical set of cvars so that the sound positioning would be correct. Perhaps I can find a way to have A3D emulated to this.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
It is amazing how much insight you derive into my intellectual capacities (or in this case, lack there-of) from a few quickly typed sentences. Kudus to you and your powerfully analytical mind. (Please write a book about your techniques some day.)
Can your powerful mind tell me how it is we have fire, the wheel, algebra, cloth, farming, shoes, and whatever else god did not directly grow out of the ground, without the administrative burden of intellectual monopoly litigation? Could it be that perhaps people did invent before Ben Franklin proposed patents?
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
The computer industry, IMO, has stepped well outside a reasonable interpretation of patent and copyright laws, which were originally designed to protect artists from publishers and inventors from companies who would steal the inventions.
I am assuming that the cases here involve patents which only pertain to specific inventions. Whether the courts will uphold a patent for something as vague as "using a chipset to interface with RAM" is not an idle question (note that the Nuclear Submarine was patented by Richard Feinman during WWII).
either way, RAMBUS will lose market control and prestige by such universal attempts to control the market and will eventually (now or in the next decade) lose a substantial marketing capabilities-- sort of the way IBM did.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Rambus is simply practicing the legalease they have been taught by their biggest backer -Intel-
In fact, it wouldn't be surprising if Rambus was actually a puppet company started by Intel for the sole purpose of exactly what it is doing now.
With most of Intel's smaller competitor's litigated to death or producing other items now -i.e. memory/asics/controllers, they are probably missing a healthy amount of revenue from all the licensing on cpu/core IP
Rambus never had a real product, but they duplicitously littered an 'open' industry forum with idea's that were already in their patent hopper, and when their RDRAM 'designs' didn't pan out when they hit silicon, they had millions in funding handily left over to turn around and try to nail everybody for using concepts that were never really owned to begin with.
And the announcements by Intel that RDRAM and the P4 weren't going to happen just as popular opinion about Rambus was going downhill, and that Rambus wouldn't be expecting Intel to pay royalties but will be attacking nearly every single Intel competitor in the world on every front,????
Well, that just play's into all of this a little too perfectly.
Samsung has a huge multi-billion dollar SDRAM supply contract with Intel - all those Intel computers that are made in Intel factory in Singapore, that then get re-badge by other OEMs, will have Samsung RDRAM in it. The Other 3 RAM makers that caved in either did it because they had business with Rambus or were involved in the Sony PS2 'industry' (which contains RDRAM) or were selling there RAM business/fabs & didn't want litigation hanging over their heads. Not one else will cave in.
Thanks. I just wish you'd logged-in so others who browse at +1 or above might have seen your comment.
I deplore the occasional (hell, endemic) lack of careful expression here. Yeah, you've got all the 7337 HaX0r5 teeny-boppers and the occasional typo (everyone does), but some failings are too consistent - Taco _always_ writes "then" for "than" and other employees repeatedly make other glaring spelling and grammatical errors. Oh well.
Almost reminds me of IBM Systems Programmers who couldn't spell many English words correctly, construct a coherent sentence, or string two sentences together into anything remotely resembling a persuasive argument - but they _could_ code ASM/JCL/REXX perfectly. I miss Will Zachmann's Canopus forum on Compuserve.
Throught the various patent lawsuits Rambus is also collecting royalties on SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM form certain manufacturers.. so far they are collecting royalties on over 50% of RAM that isn't Rambus. Now by expanding into chipsets Rambus has even more scope for gathering revenues. Not that I think this is right or anything. I personally hope the whole damn company implodes.. that would be good got my stock I'm shorting on them :)
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty