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."
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.
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.
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?
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.
Re:whoa! what does this mean???
by
91degrees
·
· 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.
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.
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.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Seriously, though, *IF* AMD can buy out the guts of Rambus, then it would be tremendously funny :-).
--
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?
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.
Since Rambus haven't been doing too well, they could really do with the cash.
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.
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.