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Rambus Loses; Vows to Appeal
Fat Rat Bastard writes: "Fresh off of the C-NET new wire comes this news flash "A federal judge in Virginia on Friday threw out the three remaining patent infringement claims brought by memory chip designer Rambus in its case against European chipmaker Infineon." Rambus are vowing to appeal after the last three of 57 patent claims that survived the chop Tuesday were thrown out of court."
. . . Rambus has announced today that it owns all patent rights to the appeal process.
I wonder what happens with the licensing agreements that Samsung and others signed with Rambus. Will they have to continue paying Samsung royalties, even though the patents have been invalidated?
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
From the article:
"In our view, if Rambus loses the Infineon case, the stock loses its catalyst," Edelstone wrote in a research note earlier this week.
Does anyone else see way too many things wrong with this quote?
Stocks should be based on a company's business model and diversified revenue stream. Putting your eggs in one basket doesn't create a catalyst, it creates a huge risk. Few computer companies make their money in court, and not only because it is unethical to do so, but because it is also unreliable. Any student of history knows the massive temper tantrums the courts have had in the past century and how often they have affected everything big business.
Who wants to guess at the likelyhood that Mr. Edelstone has Rambus technology in the memory chips of the computer he used to type the research note? In essence, he and other investors are paying Rambus to charge them more for memory, and the money is going around and around in a circle, creating the illusion of profit. This is what bubbles are made of.
I'm not sure about Infineon (anyone with Neon in their name can't be all bad), but I've always used Micron/Crucial RAM, and am very happy with it.
I bought 4GB of RAM from Crucial, 2 Tyan Thunder 2500s, and ordered 4 PIII CuMines. I got the RAM and motherboards in normal time, but the CPUs ended up being back ordered for several months.
After I got the CPUs I found that the RAM that Crucial had listed on their site as being compatible with the board actually didn't work with the board. So I called Crucial about an exchange. Since so much time had passed the first person I talked to didn't know if they could do it. But after they talked to a manager, they said it would be no problem. I got the exchange, and since RAM prices had dropped in the mean time, they gave me some money back.
I have no problem recommended Micron/Crucial to anyone.
> "If today's decision is allowed to stand, all companies that innovate risk having their intellectual property rights unjustly expropriated."
Ah, I love the smell of roasted landsharks in the morning. Smells like... victory.
You can always tell how desperate a company is by the number of times it uses the word "innovate".
My only regret is that I lacked the testicular fortitude to load up on RMBS puts this morning. Easy money.
They also have a decent FAQ covering issues like buffered/nonbuffered, registered/nonregistered, ecc/non-ecc, edo, etc. For ECC in particular, I believe that your system has to specifically be able to use it....
-- fencepost
fencepost
just a little off
I realize that this may seem obvious, be we need to reward Micron & Infineon by purchasing their RAM products. They spent tons of money fighting an unjust cause. The next time I purchase RAM, it will be for one of these two brands
Doh!
http://www.pinstruck.com/
Who wants a memory array that needs cooling almost as much as the CPU anyway?
I feel sorriest for Intel, though. They've been skirting the edge of fuckedcompany.com for over a year now because of their supply problems and brain-gimped management (sorry, there is no excuse whatsoever for a company in Intel's position to lose the amount of ground they had). They roped the P4 to Rambus and wound up getting screwed... Not good.
/Brian
What remains is Infineon's RICO charges, and contention that the patents are invalid. All that was decided was that Infineon didn't infringe, or the infringement was less than intentional.
Still up: Hynix (Hyundai) and Micron. Micron should be very interesting.
The vow to appeal is obligatory, in the the dismissed charges, as as it stands, Rambus' position is weakened. A great place to track, day to day is RMBS on Yahoo
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"If you thought there wasn't anything worse than a business built on the dot-com hype, think again -- this is gambling that'll put vegas to shame"
Maybe not, on the surface... IF RDRAM had been a superior product (which it wasn't), if RAMBust hadn't resorted to suing all their customers, and IF RAMBust hadn't acquired the SDRAM and DDR SDRAM patents in such a dodgy manner (by allegedly defrauding the JEDEC group), it might have worked.
We can hope this teaches future IT startups a lesson... You can't make it in the industry with an inferior product, lawyers, and (allegedly) fradulently gained IP. RAMBust should have gone back to the drawing board and designed a product that would actually benefit the PC market they wanted to get into instead of resorting to bully tactics.
I don't know which was dumber... RAMBust suing all their customers, or RAMBust suing all their customers over IP that they KNEW they had obtained illegitimatly...
Even should RAMBust's claims to patents on SDRAM and DDR SDRAM (less likely given this case), at BEST their royalty gravy train would have not lasted any more than 3-5 years MAX.
The rest of the industry would have formed a JEDEC-esque group and engineered an open standard for memory beyond DDR/RAMBUS, and RAMBust wouldn't have been invited... You don't make it in an industry by pissing on all your friends.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
"innovate... that word is tossed around so much today that i'm not sure that anyone really remembers what it means. it's become a buzzword like synergy or crap like that."
Like this?
RAMBUS: Our stolen IP didn't stand? We lost our right to su.. uhh... INNOVATE!
INFINEON: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
(a slightly modified famous and very funny line from "The Princess Bride")
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
From http://www.ebnews.com/story/OEG20010504S0059
"Beyond that, the continuing trial in Richmond will draw even greater interest as the jury will decide whether Rambus engaged in alleged restraint of trade and fraud by keeping its synchronous patent applications hidden while a member of the industry JEDEC panel drafting an open SDRAM standard.
Infineon this week started calling witnesses to testify on Rambus conduct at JEDEC. Attorneys for the German firm have also disclosed handwritten notes by Rambus patent attorneys describing what was alleged to be urgent pleas from Rambus officials to amend the applications in 1998 and 1999 to cover JEDEC features. "
In other words, IT AINT OVER YET!!!!
The patents may still be ruled invalid (looking likely) and some RAMBust exec might see the inside of a "Federal pound me in the ass prison" as well he/she/it deserves for their conduct...
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Now Rambus is going to have to *gasp* actually make a product instead of just go after other companies
;)
Nah, first they'll have their lawyers appeal. And in the meantime, they are still collecting royalties from a) RDRAM and b) companies that decided to "license" SDRAM and DDR SDRAM from them to begin with.
Of course, imagine how the other memory companies are looking right now, now that Infineon is royalty-free for the time being. One wonders if other companies are going to now announce that they are going to discontinue sending rambus royalty checks.
There might be some egg on their face, but they're not home free yet. For starters, the "licensing agreements" that yield the royalties for Rambus are contracts. IANAL, but I imagine that there will still be some legal wrangling that Samsung and the others will have to go through to get out of those deals (maybe make a case that they were based on invalid patents???). But that process can't even begin until the case has been appealed and re-appealed and finally settled.
RMBS shares should be trading at a discount now.
They have been for quite a while now. They'd be trading even lower if they hadn't stopped trading on it before the decision was announced. But even at 10% of their previous price, it's hardly a bargain if the company proves to have an unsustainable business model (or its only revenue generating product tanks a la RDRAM). I can't possibly imagine why so many people have been so bullish on it's stock for so long to begin with (unless it was dot-com induced euphoric mania).
The issue is not so much whether Rambus is a good or bad company either morally nor technically. The issue is whether the patents they own actually cover the technologies in rival products. If they do, then they are welcome to the royalties.
What concerns me is the process for determining the patent's applicability. What is the test to determine whether the patents Rambus have cover technology in DDR and others? By virtue of the fact that Rambus took it to court, there must be some form of grey area.
Where does the process stop? Can Rambus win in Germany, and lose in US? Can there be stupid results like that?
.. if only.