duplicate-nickname writes "Finally some good news on the patent font. A US district court tossed out most of Rambus' patent infingement claims against Infineon. The judge also states that even if Infineon has infringed on the remaining patents, they didn't do so willfully."
Rambus brow beats a bunch of vendors into bailing them out of their unsuccessful products by extorting license fees for SD-RAM related "patents" they submarined into the standards body. But these fees are conditional on the success of Rambus prevailing in courts...
I actually did some digging, very basic stuff that most people don't bother with. The JEDEC website (http://www.jedec.org/) has a lot of information in pdf format, if you care to sign up. Published standards, minutes and regulations are available for free download.
First of all, basic rules. The legal guide (and other documents) stipulate that members will participate in good faith (Section C.1) and no restraint of trade activities of any kind will take place (Section A.1), and that JEDEC will not police or audit its members or their reports to the organization (Section E). It's a pretty open organization.
Now for the heavy lifting. The JEDEC Manual has a lot of interesting stuff in it, especially in Section 7.3 which deals with use of Patented Products. First and foremost, JEDEC does not care if patented tech is used, but it does require that the holder agree to grant licenses freely or for a reasonable fee. And as some people have been asking, members must disclose 'any knowledge they may have of patents, or pending patents, that might be involved in the work they are undertaking.' (emphasis mine) Also notice the word 'might', I assume this means if you're not sure, say so anyways, good faith and disclosure and all that. So all members are aware of this clause, it is quite important because the front cover of all publications must include a blurb about patent compliance, all tech referencing patented technology must be noted, and footnotes must say 'compliance with this section of the document requires the use of patent No. xxxx' (or patent has been applied for...), this is described in Section 7.3.1
I think Rambus gambled and lost on the economy. They timed their suits with a sudden downturn in Asian economic markets. The Dramurai from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan didn't have the financial stability needed for a drawn-out lawsuit, and were forced to yield. IIRC, one of the Koreans (Hyundai or Samsung?) held out for a while, but was the last Asian company to cave.
Notice, however, the two companies that didn't cave when Rambus' lawyers came knocking? The two not based in Asia: Micron (USA) and Infineon (Germany). Rambus hoped that markets worldwide would suffer from Asia's hard times, sapping Micron's and Infineon's strength. Unfortunately for Rambus, Europe and Wall Street recovered very quickly, and Rambus got the last thing they wanted: A real, live, honest-to-God court battle.
Unfortunately for anyone who submitted to Rambus, this case probably won't change their situation. A failed patent defense doesn't automatically undo any licensing agreements already signed. IANAL, so I ask you this: What changes because the judge invoked RICO? Does that open the door for the Dramurai to have those license agreements revoked, or bring criminal charges against Rambus execs and lawyers?
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
-- This sig intentionally left blank.
Re:whoa! what does this mean???
by
trb
·
· Score: 3
In the case of
willfull infringement,
the patent owner may be entitled to treble (3x) damages.
"And we can't watch FOX because they own those chemical weapons plants in Assyria!" --Homer Simpson
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Three patents left... and two questions
by
CSC
·
· Score: 3
What exactly is the span of these three patents, tech-wise? Could anyone shed some light on that?
And on a related matter, what could Infineon risk if they end up guilty of accidentally infringing on these patents?
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Colin
Willful Infringement Enhances Damages
by
werdna
·
· Score: 4
If you are found liable for willful infringement, as opposed to non-willful infringement, then the judge may enhance the computation of actual damages to an amount not exceeding thrice the actual damages; and in an exceptional case may grant to the plaintiff an award of attorney fees as well.
Not much of a surprise . . .
by
werdna
·
· Score: 5
once you consider what happened here. This is just what lawyers call a "narrowing of the issues," and hardly a dispositive ruling. The finding of no willful infringement probably stings, however.
Rambus had a bunch of patents. Threw 'em all at the defendants. Wouldn't agree to limit the number of patents or claims prior to trial. At trial, plaintiff only addressed a narrow number of claims in a few of the patents. [It would be advocacy suicide to try to prove up a zillion claims from a zillion patents].
Unsurprisingly, after plaintiff rested its case, the defendants moved to dismiss all the counts for all the patents on the grounds that Rambus didn't meet its burden of going forward. The judge agreed with respect to all the claims of some of the patents, and some of the claims of the remaining. But several patents, and many claims, remain.
A defendant needs to infringe but one claim of one patent to be liable for infringement and subject to an injunction.
So, after half a trial, we have narrowed the issue to the remaining claims. But defendant's position on liability remains just as precarious as before.
Re:RAMBUS - no longer the memory maker
by
ncc74656
·
· Score: 4
It's pretty hard to boycott intel.
Is it? The last Intel processor I bought was a 12-MHz 286 back in '90 or '91. I've bought several different AMD and Cyrix processors since then and haven't regretted any of them. I'll allow that everything I've bought from the 386SX-25 up through the K6-200 was purchased mainly because it was the cheaper alternative, but the K6-2-300 and K6-III-450 were bought in part because they weren't Intel parts (and they deliver more than adequate integer performance; floating-point performance is OK, but I'm not a gamer). The 1.0-GHz Athlon I'm running now is faster, across-the-board, than any P!!! you can get, and gives P4s clocked 30-50% faster a run for their money. That the Athlon is not from Intel is an added bonus.
Maybe they'll be investing in a more ethical company now, like International Cruelty to Children and Small Animals. Or Allied Chemical and Nuclear Waste Disposal in Poor Neighborhoods and Third World Countries...
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
At any rate, what's silly is that they're the typical "We have a patent! We're a monopoly! Life is good! We'll be endlessly successful!"
While the gov't allows patent monopolies to encourage innovation, they have a little thing called expiration dates... in 17 years, you'd have better come up with a new and better patent to compete with or you're SOL.
So while 17 years is a long time, remember how quickly the computer industry changes. With RAMBUS's backstabbing of JEDEC, and going sue-happy, no one in their right mind would even talk to them again. Not that there's much prospect of them producing anything worthwhile anyways, but if they did (do they spend their license fees on R & D, or just lots of Ls), companies will think good and hard about even talking to them.
Welcome to the real world RAMBUS. You can screw a company over once, but don't count on doing it again...
What exactly is the span of these three patents, tech-wise? Could anyone shed some light on that?
IIRC, the term of patents is 17 years from filing date. The article didn't state what the filing date was on the three the judge has left in play, but assuming 1990 (the date I remember from earlier reports on this as being the filing date - although the patents were apparently rewritten severely much later, the filing date was kept) which is probably correct, they would expire in 2007.
And on a related matter, what could Infineon risk if they end up guilty of accidentally infringing on these patents?
IANAL, but it's my understanding that since the judge has already ruled there was no willful infringement, the worst they could get would be an order to pay the licensing fee to rambus, both on future production and on already shipped product.
In a case of willful infringement, they would face the same figure multiplied by three.
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
-- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
IIRC, the term of patents is 17 years from filing date.
You do not recall correctly. Currently, the term of patents is 20 years from the filing date. At one time, the law was 17 years from the date of grant, and for some patents it is currently "17 years from grant or 20 years from filing, whichever is longer." But 17 years from the filing date never entered into it.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Re:The expertise of the judge
by
ReadbackMonkey
·
· Score: 5
The judge doesn't have to have any technical expertise in this particular case, as most of the case has revolved around the legal interpretation of the patent language. Essentially, during Rambus initial filings, off of it's abandonded April 18, 1990 application it described the bus structure as being "a multiline bus" see US5319755 . Since most of its subsequent filings, all of the ones in this case, are based off that application as continuations or continuations-in-part. They are legally obliged to only expand on the existing ideas disclosed in the original application.
So even tho' the subsequent applications use only the term "bus", that term must be interpretted to mean "multiline bus", which is technology clearly not used in SDRAM or DDR, as there are clearly distinct lines for address, data and command signals. Any, IANAL, but I have been following this case closely.
-- "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
RAMBUS - no longer the memory maker
by
DeepDarkSky
·
· Score: 3
It seems that Rambus is now the patent and litigation company. Do they even sell memory anymore?:)
I don't know if there's an active boycott of Rambus products, but I think there should be. The industry should also do something about Rambus, if possible.
Stole ? RAMBUS was part of a committee to create a STANDARD for memeory.. RAMBUS DELIBERATELY withheld that they had patents and/or applications that the JDEC proposal could be infringing on (not nessesarily going into details).. RAMBUS AMENDED their applications to make sure that the JDEC DID infringe MORE on their patents..
Re:Rambus vs. Microsoft
by
Boulder+Geek
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· Score: 3
We all know and love Microsoft's practices of stealing other companies technologies and incorporating it into the great MS empire. Yet for some reason the Slashdot community seems to rejoice in the fact that memory companies stole Rambus' designs.
I think that the general Slashdot population is glad to see Rambus go down because there is a sound argument that Rambus, both the company and the technology, is bad for the industry.
Lets first look at the technology itself. It turns out that RDRAM is a terrible technology for main memory. It only shows advantages on certain classes of problems, and those problems aren't the ones that most users have to solve on a daily basis. Also consider that RDRAM is much more expensive to produce than normal DRAM, and you really begin to see a total disaster for the consumer.
From a business standpoint, having a single company controlling DRAM technology can't be good. Look how bad it is with processors. We're still using an architecture that should have been thrown out years ago because of the monopoly that Intel has on the commodity processor market. Do we really want to see the same thing happen with memory?
-- A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
Who knew? A judge that uses common sense, which seems to be a scarce commodity nowadays. I would reference today's Doctor Fun (link seems slow) cartoon for what most people think of judges, TV judges being only a part.
It seems obvious that the preditory nature of Rambus' actions in the past regarding synchronous DRAMs is finally coming to light in the courtroom. More power to Infineon!
The judge thrust his knife into the collapsing body of Rambus. From the quivering lips of the mortally wounded Rambus came forth the questioning cry, "Et tu iudex" (And you too Judge). It was now but a question of time before all life escaped from the body's husk. Some others jostled through the crowd that encircled the dying self-proclaimed emperor. They aimed to land a few more knife blows to hastened the demise of the much despised Rambus.
-- Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
The most surprising thing
by
Segfault+11
·
· Score: 4
Before the trial began, those of us staying abreast of this case were so confident that RAMBUST had no leg to stand on. As the "facts" came out, however, it quickly became apparent that the real situation was clear as mud.
What it seemed like to me was that there was *some* wrongdoing on the part of both parties, and what it really boiled down to were the motives of RAMBU$ -- why didn't they point out their patents so long ago when open standards were being created, and why did they wait so long to enforce them after they allowed it to happen?
Of course, this case very well could be crystal clear, and the RAM_US legal team just happens to have their own Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field®.
Re:whoa! what does this mean???
by
91degrees
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· Score: 5
I would guess its a matter of whether they looked at the patent, and ripped the, off, rather than coincidentally coming up with the same was to solve the problem. The former would suggest some punitive damages should be applied to, whereas the latter would suggest that Rambus are merely entitled to be reimbursed, and infineon should stop.
Since Rambus haven't been doing too well, they could really do with the cash.
Re:whoa! what does this mean???
by
hillct
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· Score: 3
People can attempt to patent any technology they see fit. Weather they succeed is based on the expertise of the patent clerks that review the application.
One of the other goals is, of course to get a broadly reaching patent. At any point a judge could rule that the scope of a patent is too broad and infringement would be penalized to a lesser extent. For this reason, it is in the best interest of companies to be careful about how far they reach to get a vary broad patent on a whole class of technology.
Also, I can't relally blame Rambus for trying to take back some of the ground they lost over the past two decades as memory became a commodity. This is just good business.
Re:whoa! what does this mean???
by
swagr
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· Score: 3
I agree with you that intent is the important part. Even Kant said that the only truely good thing is a good intention (and hence the converse is true as well). I just didn't know that the law saw it that way when it came to patents.
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whoa! what does this mean???
by
swagr
·
· Score: 5
The judge also states that even if Infineon has infringed on the remaining patents, they didn't do so willfully. Don't get me wrong, I hate all this patent shit too, but if someone infringes on a patent, since when does it matter if it was "willfully" or not?
The judge threw out 54 of the infringement claims, leaving only 3, and this is before Infineon even states it case that rambus abused the standards body by withholding information, or abused the US patent office by withholding the prior art that it knew of, or by presenting to the patent office as its own, the knowledge gained by its involvement in the JEDEC standards body. We can expect to see the other 3 claims thrown out as well, and I hope, court costs refunded to Infinion, and punative damages levied against Rambus as well.
With all the technical aspects of the case being thrown around by these companies, I wonder how the judge keeps things straight. After all, his degree is in law.
Do judges which hear patent cases consult with 3rd party (hopefully objective) experts concerning the related technologies? If not, then I suppose it is up to the companies to educate the judge in order to prove their cases?
Just a thought: Would it benefit society if judges were specialized. I know lawers specialize to a certain extent, but do judges?
Just wondering.
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Unscrample my email, win a prize.
The sad story about RAMBUS being implemented wrong
by
Zeio
·
· Score: 5
I know a person who works at DEC/Compaq on actually designing the Alpha chip. He said the next generation of Alpha systems will center around RAMBUS.
My first reaction was "NO, the bane of our existence is now going to fester in high end systems as well!"
He calmed me down and explained on several levels why RAMBUS was superior in this application. And by no means did he ever advocate the use of RAMBUS on a PC, he stated that it would be too costly and Intel had implemented RAMBUS incorrectly.
From what I got out of the conversation was this: RAMBUS was a high speed bus, but it is only 8 bits wide. Sounds ridiculous at first. Apparently Intel decided that 2 channels per CPU would be enough. Practically speaking, especially with high memory bandwidth application, they were somewhat correct. But the day to day performance was no better. DEC has decided to move ahead, but they are planning to use 5 channels per CPU. They are going to do many interesting things with these channels, one of the things he mentioned was the use of memory striping with parity. The probability for a multi-bit error being uncorrectable in this configuration is huge - tending to make more sense for high availability systems.
I also asked him to show me the money, where are there RAMBUS chips with the densities that are not laughably low. He indicated that the EV7 would be able to physically have 64TB of memory. That would, from what I have seen, need a memory stick the size of a 1 foot ruler per slot. The densities required for this are being made to order for DEC.
RAMBUS is a vile company, they don't seem to do much but glean royalties off of others for producing the technology. They produced something that was implemented poorly and is not especially useful for the average Joe. It would be a fitting end to see it end up on the Alpha, outside of broad market appeal. Low volume sales is just what the saps at RAMBUS need. They have done a few things to ensure royalties, they have planted RAMBUS in consoles, tried to get PC buyers to use it. They would want the price of a microwave to go up by $100 bucks too, if they could stuff RAMBUS in there somehow.
Why don't these people stop suing and whining, go to some area of the world to setup a memory plant, and make this stuff. Is it so hard to manufacture, so difficult to have good yields that they have to grab the coat tails of memory giants to pull the fabrication off?
I think NEC and Samsung should just be given the rights to RAMBUS, and have this pest of a company dissolved into the annuls of history. And Intel, shame on you for being duped into doing something so silly next time implement things correctly.
-- Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Very many patents (and especially the dreaded software patents) work well as threats against competitors, but won't last in a lawsuit. The uncertainty that comes from not knowing in advance which ones will be dismissed is what makes the threats so effective. It seems like the Rambus tactics of actually suing over their patents was a bad move, because it removed the uncertainty that could have worked in their favor.
Slashdot Mirror
Rambus brow beats a bunch of vendors into bailing them out of their unsuccessful products by extorting license fees for SD-RAM related "patents" they submarined into the standards body. But these fees are conditional on the success of Rambus prevailing in courts...
Doh!
It sounds like a business method NOT to patent!
First of all, basic rules. The legal guide (and other documents) stipulate that members will participate in good faith (Section C.1) and no restraint of trade activities of any kind will take place (Section A.1), and that JEDEC will not police or audit its members or their reports to the organization (Section E). It's a pretty open organization.
Now for the heavy lifting. The JEDEC Manual has a lot of interesting stuff in it, especially in Section 7.3 which deals with use of Patented Products. First and foremost, JEDEC does not care if patented tech is used, but it does require that the holder agree to grant licenses freely or for a reasonable fee. And as some people have been asking, members must disclose 'any knowledge they may have of patents, or pending patents, that might be involved in the work they are undertaking.' (emphasis mine) Also notice the word 'might', I assume this means if you're not sure, say so anyways, good faith and disclosure and all that. So all members are aware of this clause, it is quite important because the front cover of all publications must include a blurb about patent compliance, all tech referencing patented technology must be noted, and footnotes must say 'compliance with this section of the document requires the use of patent No. xxxx' (or patent has been applied for...), this is described in Section 7.3.1
FYI and draw our own conclusions (IANAL).
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
I think Rambus gambled and lost on the economy. They timed their suits with a sudden downturn in Asian economic markets. The Dramurai from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan didn't have the financial stability needed for a drawn-out lawsuit, and were forced to yield. IIRC, one of the Koreans (Hyundai or Samsung?) held out for a while, but was the last Asian company to cave.
Notice, however, the two companies that didn't cave when Rambus' lawyers came knocking? The two not based in Asia: Micron (USA) and Infineon (Germany). Rambus hoped that markets worldwide would suffer from Asia's hard times, sapping Micron's and Infineon's strength. Unfortunately for Rambus, Europe and Wall Street recovered very quickly, and Rambus got the last thing they wanted: A real, live, honest-to-God court battle.
Unfortunately for anyone who submitted to Rambus, this case probably won't change their situation. A failed patent defense doesn't automatically undo any licensing agreements already signed. IANAL, so I ask you this: What changes because the judge invoked RICO? Does that open the door for the Dramurai to have those license agreements revoked, or bring criminal charges against Rambus execs and lawyers?
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
In the case of willfull infringement, the patent owner may be entitled to treble (3x) damages.
You forgot the FOX network.
"And we can't watch FOX because they own those chemical weapons plants in Assyria!"
--Homer Simpson
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
And on a related matter, what could Infineon risk if they end up guilty of accidentally infringing on these patents?
-- Colin
If you are found liable for willful infringement, as opposed to non-willful infringement, then the judge may enhance the computation of actual damages to an amount not exceeding thrice the actual damages; and in an exceptional case may grant to the plaintiff an award of attorney fees as well.
once you consider what happened here. This is just what lawyers call a "narrowing of the issues," and hardly a dispositive ruling. The finding of no willful infringement probably stings, however.
Rambus had a bunch of patents. Threw 'em all at the defendants. Wouldn't agree to limit the number of patents or claims prior to trial. At trial, plaintiff only addressed a narrow number of claims in a few of the patents. [It would be advocacy suicide to try to prove up a zillion claims from a zillion patents].
Unsurprisingly, after plaintiff rested its case, the defendants moved to dismiss all the counts for all the patents on the grounds that Rambus didn't meet its burden of going forward. The judge agreed with respect to all the claims of some of the patents, and some of the claims of the remaining. But several patents, and many claims, remain.
A defendant needs to infringe but one claim of one patent to be liable for infringement and subject to an injunction.
So, after half a trial, we have narrowed the issue to the remaining claims. But defendant's position on liability remains just as precarious as before.
Is it? The last Intel processor I bought was a 12-MHz 286 back in '90 or '91. I've bought several different AMD and Cyrix processors since then and haven't regretted any of them. I'll allow that everything I've bought from the 386SX-25 up through the K6-200 was purchased mainly because it was the cheaper alternative, but the K6-2-300 and K6-III-450 were bought in part because they weren't Intel parts (and they deliver more than adequate integer performance; floating-point performance is OK, but I'm not a gamer). The 1.0-GHz Athlon I'm running now is faster, across-the-board, than any P!!! you can get, and gives P4s clocked 30-50% faster a run for their money. That the Athlon is not from Intel is an added bonus.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
If you unintentionally infringe on a patent you pay the patent holder damages. If you intentionally infringe on a patent you pay up to 3x damages.
So if you infringe on someone's patent, make sure you don't have any paperwork saying you knew about it before.
Seriously, though, *IF* AMD can buy out the guts of Rambus, then it would be tremendously funny :-).
--
big difference.
nonetheless, a step in the right direction.
Poof.
Maybe they'll be investing in a more ethical company now, like International Cruelty to Children and Small Animals. Or Allied Chemical and Nuclear Waste Disposal in Poor Neighborhoods and Third World Countries...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
IIRC, the term of patents is 17 years from filing date. The article didn't state what the filing date was on the three the judge has left in play, but assuming 1990 (the date I remember from earlier reports on this as being the filing date - although the patents were apparently rewritten severely much later, the filing date was kept) which is probably correct, they would expire in 2007.
IANAL, but it's my understanding that since the judge has already ruled there was no willful infringement, the worst they could get would be an order to pay the licensing fee to rambus, both on future production and on already shipped product.
In a case of willful infringement, they would face the same figure multiplied by three.
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The judge doesn't have to have any technical expertise in this particular case, as most of the case has revolved around the legal interpretation of the patent language. Essentially, during Rambus initial filings, off of it's abandonded April 18, 1990 application it described the bus structure as being "a multiline bus" see US5319755 . Since most of its subsequent filings, all of the ones in this case, are based off that application as continuations or continuations-in-part. They are legally obliged to only expand on the existing ideas disclosed in the original application.
So even tho' the subsequent applications use only the term "bus", that term must be interpretted to mean "multiline bus", which is technology clearly not used in SDRAM or DDR, as there are clearly distinct lines for address, data and command signals. Any, IANAL, but I have been following this case closely.
Have you checked prices on DDR latley? Doesn't look too bad to me.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
I don't know if there's an active boycott of Rambus products, but I think there should be. The industry should also do something about Rambus, if possible.
And can I get it in italic and boldface?
So how did they steal from RAMBUS ?
UPS Sucks
I think that the general Slashdot population is glad to see Rambus go down because there is a sound argument that Rambus, both the company and the technology, is bad for the industry.
Lets first look at the technology itself. It turns out that RDRAM is a terrible technology for main memory. It only shows advantages on certain classes of problems, and those problems aren't the ones that most users have to solve on a daily basis. Also consider that RDRAM is much more expensive to produce than normal DRAM, and you really begin to see a total disaster for the consumer.
From a business standpoint, having a single company controlling DRAM technology can't be good. Look how bad it is with processors. We're still using an architecture that should have been thrown out years ago because of the monopoly that Intel has on the commodity processor market. Do we really want to see the same thing happen with memory?
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
Who knew? A judge that uses common sense, which seems to be a scarce commodity nowadays. I would reference today's Doctor Fun (link seems slow) cartoon for what most people think of judges, TV judges being only a part. It seems obvious that the preditory nature of Rambus' actions in the past regarding synchronous DRAMs is finally coming to light in the courtroom. More power to Infineon!
The judge thrust his knife into the collapsing body of Rambus. From the quivering lips of the mortally wounded Rambus came forth the questioning cry, "Et tu iudex" (And you too Judge). It was now but a question of time before all life escaped from the body's husk. Some others jostled through the crowd that encircled the dying self-proclaimed emperor. They aimed to land a few more knife blows to hastened the demise of the much despised Rambus.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
What it seemed like to me was that there was *some* wrongdoing on the part of both parties, and what it really boiled down to were the motives of RAMBU$ -- why didn't they point out their patents so long ago when open standards were being created, and why did they wait so long to enforce them after they allowed it to happen?
Of course, this case very well could be crystal clear, and the RAM_US legal team just happens to have their own Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field®.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
on the patent font.
Is there a church of patents or something?
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Since Rambus haven't been doing too well, they could really do with the cash.
People can attempt to patent any technology they see fit. Weather they succeed is based on the expertise of the patent clerks that review the application.
One of the other goals is, of course to get a broadly reaching patent. At any point a judge could rule that the scope of a patent is too broad and infringement would be penalized to a lesser extent. For this reason, it is in the best interest of companies to be careful about how far they reach to get a vary broad patent on a whole class of technology.
Also, I can't relally blame Rambus for trying to take back some of the ground they lost over the past two decades as memory became a commodity. This is just good business.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I agree with you that intent is the important part. Even Kant said that the only truely good thing is a good intention (and hence the converse is true as well). I just didn't know that the law saw it that way when it came to patents.
-... ---
The judge also states that even if Infineon has infringed on the remaining patents, they didn't do so willfully.
Don't get me wrong, I hate all this patent shit too, but if someone infringes on a patent, since when does it matter if it was "willfully" or not?
-... ---
The judge threw out 54 of the infringement claims, leaving only 3, and this is before Infineon even states it case that rambus abused the standards body by withholding information, or abused the US patent office by withholding the prior art that it knew of, or by presenting to the patent office as its own, the knowledge gained by its involvement in the JEDEC standards body. We can expect to see the other 3 claims thrown out as well, and I hope, court costs refunded to Infinion, and punative damages levied against Rambus as well.
Do judges which hear patent cases consult with 3rd party (hopefully objective) experts concerning the related technologies? If not, then I suppose it is up to the companies to educate the judge in order to prove their cases?
Just a thought: Would it benefit society if judges were specialized. I know lawers specialize to a certain extent, but do judges?
Just wondering.
--
--
Unscrample my email, win a prize.
I know a person who works at DEC/Compaq on actually designing the Alpha chip. He said the next generation of Alpha systems will center around RAMBUS.
My first reaction was "NO, the bane of our existence is now going to fester in high end systems as well!"
He calmed me down and explained on several levels why RAMBUS was superior in this application. And by no means did he ever advocate the use of RAMBUS on a PC, he stated that it would be too costly and Intel had implemented RAMBUS incorrectly.
From what I got out of the conversation was this: RAMBUS was a high speed bus, but it is only 8 bits wide. Sounds ridiculous at first. Apparently Intel decided that 2 channels per CPU would be enough. Practically speaking, especially with high memory bandwidth application, they were somewhat correct. But the day to day performance was no better. DEC has decided to move ahead, but they are planning to use 5 channels per CPU. They are going to do many interesting things with these channels, one of the things he mentioned was the use of memory striping with parity. The probability for a multi-bit error being uncorrectable in this configuration is huge - tending to make more sense for high availability systems.
I also asked him to show me the money, where are there RAMBUS chips with the densities that are not laughably low. He indicated that the EV7 would be able to physically have 64TB of memory. That would, from what I have seen, need a memory stick the size of a 1 foot ruler per slot. The densities required for this are being made to order for DEC.
RAMBUS is a vile company, they don't seem to do much but glean royalties off of others for producing the technology. They produced something that was implemented poorly and is not especially useful for the average Joe. It would be a fitting end to see it end up on the Alpha, outside of broad market appeal. Low volume sales is just what the saps at RAMBUS need. They have done a few things to ensure royalties, they have planted RAMBUS in consoles, tried to get PC buyers to use it. They would want the price of a microwave to go up by $100 bucks too, if they could stuff RAMBUS in there somehow.
Why don't these people stop suing and whining, go to some area of the world to setup a memory plant, and make this stuff. Is it so hard to manufacture, so difficult to have good yields that they have to grab the coat tails of memory giants to pull the fabrication off?
I think NEC and Samsung should just be given the rights to RAMBUS, and have this pest of a company dissolved into the annuls of history. And Intel, shame on you for being duped into doing something so silly next time implement things correctly.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Very many patents (and especially the dreaded software patents) work well as threats against competitors, but won't last in a lawsuit. The uncertainty that comes from not knowing in advance which ones will be dismissed is what makes the threats so effective. It seems like the Rambus tactics of actually suing over their patents was a bad move, because it removed the uncertainty that could have worked in their favor.