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Appeals Court Upholds Rambus Fraud Ruling
LordArathres writes "The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia has refused to do away with Infinion Technologies' fraud charges against Rambus Inc. based on alleged failure to disclose its SDRAM patent applications to the JEDEC standards group. This action allows Infineon attorneys to depose Rambus officials and attorneys concerning legal discussions about disclosure of the SDRAM patent applications to JEDEC during the time when the company participated in panel discussions of SDRAM open standards. Client-attorney privileges do not apply in cases of possible fraud. The trial will officially begin April 17.
Story Here"
Yes, thats the jist of it.
The claim is that Rambus developed these technologies and filed several patents with the USPTO. Then they went to the JEDEC committee and suggested, "hey, why don't we do this: " Without disclosing the fact they had a patent application for it. Now according to JEDEC rules, they HAD to disclose this fact. Rambus did not. Then several years later when SDRAM was starting to roll out - guess what, Rambus had several patents granted that may result in SDRAM royalties.
While this could be interpretted as an administrative oversight (and certainly Rambus will spin it that way). Rambus apparently went to their lawyers and specifically asked if they could corner the market by withholding this info.
Or so that is what is claimed in the suit.
Tom
Actually, I worked for a number of years at that company. I was a systems designer and was TCB(tm). In fact, I noticed first-hand the level of corruption. Sometimes managers and their ilk would purposely shirk on product specifications and when designers complained that the product would not be put together properly, they were silenced. There was one incident where one of the CEOs laid off a worker simply because he objected to the false advertising they were perpetuating.
The scary part is that I know that was not the only company where such practices were relatively commonplace.
You're a lot more likely to get modded up if you explain what the hell you mean and offer some evidence to support it. Otherwise you're just another ranting idiot.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Been trying to keep a rambus system up more than 2 hours. Dumps 194 ECC errors every time and crashes. The sticks heat up to 500` and say "warning hot surface" on top. And they call this memory. I'm suing for 3rd degree burns.
I'm willing to bet that McDonald's has a ton of patents on all sorts of things. Both parents of an ex-girlfriend of mine were human factors engineers, taking existing things and tailoring them to people for efficiency and productivity. They said that the two best human factors departments in the world belonged to the US Postal Service and McDonald's. When McDonald's engineers figure out a way to flip a burger a half second faster, or fill a drink a little quicker, they go and patent that innovation. Why should Burger King get the improvement that McDonald's spent buckets of money developing? McDonald's wouldn't bother spending the cash if it wouldn't give them an advantage in the market. And then your food would take even longer and be even colder than it is now. And if there is one thing that is truly bad for consumers, it's cold french fries.
-B
Incorrect. Under American legal ethics rules, lawyers don't have to report confessions. (Under the ethics rules in most American jurisdictions, a lawyer does a limited "duty to warn" when a client has told the lawyer that he intends to commit a crime involving serious bodily harm or damage to property (e.g., "I'm going to kill my ex-wife Friday," "I'm going to burn down the widget factory tonight"). But if the crime is already over, there's no duty to report the confession.)
Note, however, that a lawyer can't put a witness on the stand who the lawyer knows will commit perjury. So if a client confesses to a lawyer, the lawyer can't put the client up on the stand to say "I didn't do it," though that doesn't mean the lawyer can't plead "not guilty" on the client's behalf.
There is an exception to the attorney-client privilege called the "crime-fraud exception" which means that if a client uses his lawyer's services to commit a crime -- e.g., to commit a fraud, to pass a bad check to his creditors -- he has no privilege. But there's got to be some upfront showing that the client did in fact do that before a court will compel the client's attorney to testify.
If you ever get mixed up in anything large and nasty enough to have the big guns of Federal RICO statutes leveled at you, you'll wish you'd never been born. No kidding.
RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. This kind of serious criminal prosecution motivated the Mafia to have Jimmy Hoffa "taken for a ride."
OK, I'll admit it's somewhat of a stretch. But suppose that fraud is proven in a civil case. That might lead to further criminal prosecution, especially if the victims complain.
The Rambus lawyers are potentially in a _lot_ more trouble than perjury and lost licenses. Infineon has alleged that Rambus engaged in a pattern of corrupt practices, in conspiracy with their lawyers and others ("Secret Squirrel" and "Deep Throat" - Rambus moles in JEDEC after Rambus resigned). These charges invoke Federal RICO statutes that have _very_ harsh penalties, as they were created and used to imprison and confiscate the ill-gotten assets of Mafia families and drug-running conspiracies.
What the Court just did was refuse to throw out the allegations that invoke the RICO jeopardies. If these charges stick, then not only will Rambus lose its patent claims, but its assets could be confiscated, and some Rambus executives and lawyers might be taking early retirement... in Federal penal institutions. Couldn't happen to nicer people...
They will go to trial, and pay for their crimes...
Great! It's about time! I haven't bought a new computer in 2 years now, and the sooner we squeeze these bastards out of the market, the quicker I can buy a cheaper motherboard and cheaper RAM than what's out today!
(Oh, wait, I forgot about AMD.)
Now, all I need is those prices to come down on plasma displays a bit more, and I'm set...
How the hell can they refuse to release detail?
The patent is a means to release knowledge to the public.
I know a lot of people think that the patent office is some sort of test of ingenuity for inventions and if you win you get to keep everyone from building your invention.
However, that has nothing to do with reality. Just because you think something belongs to you, doesn't mean it's yours.
In reality, if you don't realease details then people will need to be as creative as you to invent the same thing.
Rule 1. Nothing in reality prevents anyone from inventing the same thing, except cost and lack of talent.
Rule 2. If you release the documentation then anyone can make a copy.
Rule 3. Most would not release or would release only to neighbors since it would be costly to release everywhere even if they wanted to.
In reality, though we may have technologies to maximize sharing possibilities, we have several things that drain resources.
1. We need food, clothes, water, and property. We are not plants, stones, hard skinned animals, nor programs..
2. We need cash to get all these things.
3. We need jobs to get cash.
Abusing patents hurts the job market which cascades and forces companies to abuse patents even more.
The odd thing is that a company that abuses a patent often has no other recourse to shut up ignorant shareholders. Even if the abuse of the patent will not result in greater revenue, idiot investors will set a value for the company higher than it's truly worth.
Frankly, refusing to release patent details should negate the patent.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
[satire]Thats a dangerously unamerican thing to say! These gentlemen, these dreamers, these HEROS awoke with a dream -- a dream to subvert a standards body and profit from that deciet.
This is infact the american dream. Money for nothing.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
The court of appeals for the FEDERAL CIRCUIT, has exclusive jurisdiction over appeal from patent infringement cases. I don't think the reporter got his court right in the story.
The Fourth Circuit does not show a disposition of a Rambus case. However, the Federal Circuit does show last weeks dispositions including a denial of mandamus "In Re Rambus Inc." (Sorry, no opinion on the site.)
As if anyone cares about the difference but me, but I needed to vent about the reporter apparently not even checking which court issued the ruling.
The way it works is that:
First, the person who wants to protect the documents has to show that they were in communication between an attorney and a client regarding legal advice. That establishes the existence of the privilege. The judge may or may not need to look at the documents ("in camera" inspection) to do this.
Second, the person who wants to break the privilege has to show why the privilege does not hold. The most common reason is that the document was shown to somebody who other than the attorney or client.
In this case that reason is the "crime-fraud" exception. This is what was used in the tobacco cases to get some of those documents. You have to make a showing that the client was using the attorney's advice to commit a crime or a fraud. That's a fairly hard showing without the document. You can't get the document before you make the showing required to get the document. However, the judge might look at it, and then decide you can have it.
For the few lawyers and all the non lawyers: Why is there no client attorney privilege? I mean, the case is 'possible fraud', right? We 'know' who's right & wrong, but isn't there's no innocent before guilty in fraud cases?
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
wouldn't just going out and killing all the lawyers, destroying their offices, their computers, their servers, and their homes get Rambus out of trouble?
Lawyers don't sue people; plaintiffs sue people. <IANAL>If all the attorneys died, plaintiffs would probably just read the law and represent themselves.</IANAL>
Will I retire or break 10K?
Patents are public knowledge, etc. Patent applications are probably not, until the patent is granted.
Actually, Europe and (since recently) the US publish patent applications eighteen months after filing, giving potential infringers ample time to back out of the market.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Rambus is a good technology (you can see it with P4 systems, the memory bandwidth is good, latency sucks but overall it's not THAT bad). Problem is it's ran by complete greedy morons.
They have something on which they could compete on the market. The hell with the DDR patent, how about making something better than ddr and kill it on a technological standpoint, not in court, that way they would earn their money, earn our respect and have a nice buisness story... right now they don't have any of it, and worse, they'll probably die by their own stupidity and greed.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Hmmm, can't say I agree with you. The issues with Rambus have nothing to do with the fact that they have lots of patents. The issues are that:
1. Many feel their patents are tenative, covering broad, sweeping areas of technology
2. Their licensing agreements hurt consumers and stifle innovation
3. They are being sued for sitting on a standards body and not disclosing patented technologies that ended up in the final standard, then charged steep licensing fees.
I don't think you can broadly discount patents as a bad thing. Intellectual property law is very important and has proven for many years to promote innovation. For instance, without intellectual property laws the GPL wouldn't exist. Why? Because you'd have no ability to dictate how someone else used your ideas. They could extend your code, charge a gajillion dollars for it, and refuse to release source. It's not IP that's bad, it's when it's abused that there's an issue.
---
NEW YORK -- Shares of Rambus today plummeted to a record low as investors reacted to an anonymous Slashdot poster's announcement that he would no longer be conducting business with them. "Screw Rambus," said the poster, "I'll NEVER BUY THEIR SHIT." Rambus spokespersons denied that the company would have difficulty meeting third quarter sales projections as a result, but analysts are clearly worried...
You know, if someone were willing to take the fall (because of loyalty, deferred rewards, or stupidity), wouldn't just going out and killing all the lawyers, destroying their offices, their computers, their servers, and their homes get Rambus out of trouble?
I mean allegations of fraud require evidence, but if all the evidence were gone...
Still would there be enough circumstancial evidence lying around?
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
There is an exception to the attorney-client privilege called the "crime-fraud exception" which means that if a client uses his lawyer's services to commit a crime -- e.g., to commit a fraud, to pass a bad check to his creditors -- he has no privilege. But there's got to be some upfront showing that the client did in fact do that before a court will compel the client's attorney to testify.
Maybe the courts felt that the rampant lawsuits flung madly in all directions constitute fraud, hoping that someone would just give in and pay instead of fight and get it dropped. It's kind of along the lines of sending a bill to another company for services never rendered, hoping it'll slip through and get paid anyway. This was considered fraud too.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
It's great unless you are running on a non-Windows machine. There is no equivalent software for Linux, *BSD, BeOS, Mac, Solaris, etc.
Sure. But I look at the way I'm wasting my time, and the way you're wasting your time, and I'm glad I'm me instead of you.
In other news, I'm surprised that nobody seems to have come up with a Java Filter that is smart enough to just kill multiple and recursive popups and OnClose().
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
It is about time rambus got in trouble over it's silly patents. Moveover, their lawyers have become a liability now that they have to testify. I didn't thing things would get that good. :>
I am getting tired of companies playing the patent everything game; it is about time it blows up in someone's face.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
One exception to attorney-client privilege occurrs if the attorney and client are accomplices in the crime. Perhaps they are alleging that the attorneys had a role in the crime (which they would have if they were filing the patents)?
IANAL, etc.
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