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Court Decision Favors Rambus

Posted by Hemos on from the and-it-goes-on-and-on dept.

RoscoeP writes "This story from News.com: "A federal judge has overturned two counts of fraud against chip designer Rambus...". At least Rambus can't pursue litigation against Infineon for SDRAM though." See our previous stories about Rambus for far-too-much background.

6 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. This is awful. by david.johns · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For the first time in a LOOONG time a company has (had) been charged with fraud, in connection with activities that constitute... well... fraud.

    Aside - if it had been a DMCA violation, we would have been executing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprosecuting employees by now.

    In my mind, at least, it's going to be very hard to maintain that their patents are bogus if they are not fraudulent. I don't know much about how our appeals system works (never had to use it, thank gods) but I expect that the higher court to whom they appeal cannot effectively re-open the investigation of fraud without Infineon also appealing.

    That means the next case is (probably) going to go like this:

    These your patents? Yup. This their RAM? Yup. Pay 'em. Case closed.

    AFAIK there is no viable way for the court to assert anything else without a _major_ break from precedent.

    Remember, though. IANAL. I really hope I'm wrong.

  2. Well, from Rambus' point of view... by Yumi+Saotome · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They believe what they are doing is protecting their inventions. I mean, to them, SDRAM is just an extention of RDRAM (incorporates such things like Delay Gate technology), which is why they should extend their claims to SDRAM. Infineon then claims no, they invented it first, and shouldn't have to pay for anything. At the end, it will just rely on prior art, and in that case, Rambus seriously believes that it can win (at least, for DDR DRAM). This is what I hear from a bunch of Rambus employees.

  3. Re:Intellectual Property laws are getting out of h by mimbleton · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There you go ...
    You got a patch for known problem and you applied it.
    The only difference from commercial products is that it was source patch as opposed to binary one.
    I fail to see any advantages here. I mean what is so superior about performing recompile instead of simply downloading patched kernel?

  4. Quick look at PriceWatch by rkischuk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    256 MB 800 mhz Rambus RDRAM - $87
    512 MB 800 mhz Rambus RDRAM - $380

    256 MB PC133 Micron SDRAM - $25
    512 MB PC133 Micron SDRAM - $77

    Remind me why I need this stuff? If you want to see the future of RAMBUS, reference "microchannel" expansion slots. It seems you can only strongarm an entire marketplace if you make software....

    --
    Seen any BadMarketing lately?
  5. Re:Great! by A+Commentor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When rambus cranks up the fees... 10, 20, 100% on DDR so that it subsidies their own RAMBUS memory and raises the DDR prices to higher that RAMBUS, you WILL care... but by then it'll be too late.

    --

    Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com

  6. HOT! The Shareholder Suit Against Rambus by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It seems even their shareholders don't like them.

    Just up on Yahoo news: Shareholder suit filed in US District Court of Northern California on charges of fraud in representing their patents on SDRAM.

    There's some serious blood in the water here. Could this be the beginning of the end?

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar