Slashdot Mirror
Rambus Wins Case Against Infineon
rednoise writes "Yahoo is running a story about how a Federal Circuit Court in California (I think) has (unbelievably) ruled that RAMBUS did NOT intentionally mislead members of JEDEC when the committee was developing the SDRAM specification. RAMBUS' stock skyrocketed something like 57% on the news. This is very bad news for owners of computers."
This slashdot story is written rather poorly. For example you could have explained why it is a bad thing for computer owners. Only the statement alone looks a bit too little.
Thank goodness that the Microsofts and the Rambuses in the world are protecting the freedom to innovate. Why, if they ewre taken down, people would be forced to buy things from smaller companies which as we all know are totally incapable of innovation.
Now I'm going to McDonalds for a delicious cheeseburger.
Wow, I'm going to start a company and my goal will be to win as many court cases as possible. That'll pump up my stock price!
Just guessing..
Why is this bad for computer users?
~S
I already read this elsewhere!
Damnit! Someone beat me!
The company's stock soared on the news, rising $54.75, or 57 percent, to close at $11.69 on Nasdaq.
Ah, Yahoo.
That's all fine and good, but I _still_ don't know which motherboards take what RAM ...
"This is very bad news for owners of computers."
We are all so caught up in hating RAMBUS, that we fail to realize they rightfully own the patent under U.S. law no matter how many other people violated it
If you made a chip that ran at 10 ghz right now because of your skill with iron-steel-copper interconnecting rails, and patented it in September of 2003, and the following year Intel used the same process, would you like it?
No!
In anticipation of the 5 or 6 flames I'll receive claiming it's a different case, it isn't. No one cared about SDRAM 20 years ago, so it wasn't publicized. Also, RAMBUS (or whoever held the patent at that time) lacked the time and money for an expensive legal battle with the whole memory industry at that time.
You might consider reading the article a little more carefully. It's being sent back for "reconsideration." Nor did the article say that the court found they did NOT perpetrate a fraud... it just said that it wasn't proven that they did.
So, it's neither good news nor bad news for anyone but Rambus, since they're not dead in the water. Infeneon will have to keep going.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is based in Washington D.C. They hear appeals from all Patent cases, and almost all of the judges are former patent attorneys. Because Patent cases are so rarely litigated, many district court judges make poor decisions on the law (especially in constructing claims) when they actually have to handle a case. The court overturning the appeal does not necessarily mean that Rambus wins the patent case. The court ruled that, in construing the claims, the judge defined 5 terms wrong. It is still possible to find that Infineon does not infringe the patents. The court also overturned the fraud charges because they felt that the JEDEC did not uniformly enforce their patent policy. This decision shows why it is important that these standards groups be very strict in composing and enforcing their patent policies so crap like this doesn't happen.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
What I can't understand is why a ccompany that has had such horrible problems living up to the demands placed on them in the past (The whole Playstation 2's lack of units during its release was partially their fault) and that was so slow to open their standards, and has forced computer users to thinking of their RAM in pairs again (didn't we kill that when EDO died?) is still being USED by computer manufacturers. How much are they being paid to base their systems on this RAM standard? Long live DDR!
.sig: It's what's for dinner.
"The decision also revived Rambus' claim alleging Infineon infringed on Rambus' patents on technology used in computer memory chips, called SDRAM." (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/030129/rambus_lawsuit_3.h tml)
Guess who owns a patent on SDRAM? Rambus does! Infineon said that Rambus deliberately forgot to disclose this fact so as to be able to sue them later--a newly enforced patent on this technology = bad news for motherboard developers. Incidentally, the FTC doesn't like their business practices all that much, either.
Is it just me or does this make no sense:
The company's stock soared on the news, rising $54.75, or 57 percent, to close at $11.69 on Nasdaq.
anyway the ticker next to the article says it has risen $4.25
hook
If there are any lawyers, can you tell us what can be done in the future to prevent a RAMBUS type of deception?
If it was 20 years ago I would think the patent had expired 3 years ago, or am I missing something?
~S
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
Oh, I'm a Republican
I got a small schling
I like to bomb niggahs
and make a lot o' bling
I got a bunch o' friends
in high up places
They helps me get dem
government graces.
You think I'm smart
I just know who's who
I couldn't run a fruit stand
without the red white & blue
I'll drop some crap
about Jesus the Christ
You'll buy it all
and vote for me twice
'Fact, Jesus is comin'!
Real soon, now!
So we gotta prop up Israel
That ol' sacred cow
Don't need no history
Don't need no schoolin'
I got my ideology
To keep me a shootin'
Liberals! Faggots!
Commies and queers!
Socialist hippies
Full o' pussy tears
Facts? No! Don't need em here!
We're conservatives! We work on FEAR!
Don't like what we say?
Well FUCK YOU, bud!
We'll shove it down yer throat
and tell ya it's good!
Propaganda's m'friend
But I calls it "fact"
Even though I don't read
'Cept for Chick tracts
Title says it all...
~S
How is it bad? I already paid for everything I own, so how can this ruling affect me?
Lessee, if the stock price went up $54.75 to end at $11.69, then what was the price before the rise, minus $43.06? Let me have some a stock where they pay you $43.06 per share to take it off their hands, please. Rambus was in bad financial shape I know, but that is ridiculous.
Am I the only one that sees a little fuzzy math here? Quite an impressive gain on the day, considering the stock opened at -43.06. Anyone know how to work with decimals? Anyone?
It's incredibly scarey when the company that actually owns the patent to the technology that is the future of RAM can't play fair with the other children.
Not intending to mislead the JEDEC is no excuse to doing it. They either did or didn't. Try telling a traffic cop you didn't intend to speed.
"ANY BREAKFAST BAGEL SANDWICH" at McDonald's!
Terrorist 1: "What are we doing here, Abdul?"
Terrorist 2: "It should be obvious, Mohammad. We are getting sandwiches."
Terrorist 1: "This place is a symbol of all that is evil about the West, Abdul. Simply being present here corrupts the soul. It is an abomination before Allah."
Terrorist 2: "The clown is indeed disturbing. But the large purple fungus-man amuses me."
Terrorist 1: "You know that is not what I am talking about. This place flaunts its degenerate Western values in the face of Heaven. It must be expunged from the Earth!"
Terrorist 2: "Keep your voice down, Mohammad."
Terrorist 1: "IT IS THE WILL OF--"
Terrorist 2: "SHUT UP, YOU FOOL! DO WANT TO BE ARRESTED BEFORE...ahh, before we can order our delicious food? No, no, fellow citizens, my friend is simply agitated about the--ahh--swill served at that Wendy's down the street. Not like this fine establishment. No, no."
Crew chief: "Welcome to McDonalds, sir, can I take your order?"
Terrorist 2: "Ahh, yes. I will have a Big Mac, regular fries, and a large orange drink."
Crew chief: "And you, sir?"
Terrorist 1: "Hmm. What is this 'Happy Meal' item?"
Crew chief: "That's a children's meal, sir. You'd probably prefer a larger sandwich."
Terrorist 1: "ZIONIST WHORE! YOU WILL BURN IN THE FLAMES OF HELL!"
Terrorist 2: "SHUT UP, YOU FOOL! He--He--He is a collector! He needs but one more Hot Wheels toy to complete his collection! Right, uh, uh, Sam?"
Terrorist 1: "Yes, fine."
Terrorist 2: "Right. Right. He will have the cheeseburger Happy Meal with a cold refreshing Coca-Cola. I am very sorry he became so agitated."
Crew chief: "That--That's okay, sir. Your order will be ready in just a moment."
Terrorist 2: "Mohammad, you fool. You must keep your mouth shut. Let me do the talking."
Terrorist 1: "My name is not Sam."
Terrorist 2: "I know that. We are supposed to blend with the Americans, remember?"
Terrorist 1: "Do not call me by degenerate Western names, Abdul."
Terrorist 2: "Did you pay no attention during training? Weren't you listening to--"
Crew chief: "Number 23!"
Terrorist 2: "Come on. That's our food."
Terrorist 1: "Hmm. This meal doesn't look very happy. And the portions are very small."
Terrorist 2: "Shut up, Mohammad."
Terrorist 1: "And this toy car appears to be cheaply constructed."
Terrorist 2: "Shut up, Mohammad."
Terrorist 1: "What is this?"
Terrorist 2: "Hmmm? Oh, that's the Monopoly scratch-off game. Scratch away the silver parts of the card and you win a prize, like food or money. Not like that, Mohammad. Use a quarter."
Terrorist 1: "Hmph. More tools for spreading blasphemous Western values."
Terrorist 2: "Use the edge of the quarter, Mohammad."
Terrorist 1: "Oh."
Terrorist 2: "Allah help me..."
Terrorist 1: "A-Abdul! Look! Look! I won!"
Terrorist 2: "Really? That's wonderful. What was your prize?"
Terrorist 1: "It says I won 'any breakfast bagel sandwich!' You see? What is a breakfast bagel sandwich?"
Terrorist 2: "They slice a bagel in half, then put eggs and meat inside it. It's fairly tasty. Better than the pancakes, I'll tell you that."
Terrorist 1: "I can't believe it! Can I get it now?"
Terrorist 2: "No, they only serve that for breakfast. We'll get one in the morning, alright?"
Terrorist 1: "I--I--Oh, alright. It cannot be helped. I still can't believe this, Abdul! I've never won anything before!"
Terrorist 2: "You'll have to try the sausage bagel. You'll love it."
Who cares. I know which one I'd want... better than a Lottery win anyday!
-Mark
mod this down
More proof that money can buy anything, in case you werent yet convinced...
- We are all so caught up in hating RAMBUS, that we fail to realize
- they rightfully own the patent under U.S. law no matter how many other people violated it...
That's not the point. The point is, that when the JEDEC (of which RAMBUS Inc. was and is a member) was working up the SDRAM spec, RAMBUS somehow "forgot" to mention that they already had a patent on something that was going into the spec.In other words, it's not a matter of RAMBUS rightfully owning the patent under U.S. law and it never was. It's a matter of RAMBUS implicitly giving JEDEC (and any user of the free and open JEDEC SDRAM spec) a free license to use that patent when they "forgot" to tell the group about this little patent they had.
So yes, RAMBUS owns the patent. However, they gave up their right to enforce it when they misled the JEDEC into incorporating it into the SDRAM standard.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
Rambus asks for, what, a 3% royalty on the DRAM which is about $3 for every 512MB. And that cost will be passed right along to me. Sounds good! Whoever really invented this stuff deserves it. Qualcomm figured out CDMA, gets a much nicer chunk of the cell phone pricetag, and no one bitches about them.
This is very bad news for owners of computers
:)
Hehe...but not if you own some Rambus stock
Anyways, this might lead to lots of other pending lawsuits and cases against Rambus getting settled. The district court judge is taking a lot of flack now for how this case was handled - jury persuassion, etc. Expect to hear more about this in the coming days.
A poorly written story on /. I can't believe it.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
But very good news for owners of Rambus stock!
I have nothing to allude to, and I am alluding to it.
...your RAM now before this news gets out and the price gets jacked up. This is real bad news indeed. Fscktards. Oh yeah...my .SIG is a great ironic comment on this whole affair, considering that RAMBUS prolly bought this verdict by smokin' Duh!bya's johnson.
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Rambus makes memory chip acceleration technology that virtually all of the world's big computer chip makers license. The company's stock soared on the news, rising $54.75, or 57 percent, to close at $11.69 on Nasdaq.
Don't try to do the math. Your head will explode.
This is a recent development. If it really happened 20 years ago the friggin' patent would have already expired.
Basically RAMBUS is claiming that SDRAM infringes on it's Rambus patents even though it entered into an agreement when joining the standards committe that said it would disclaim all patent rights to the technology.
And it did so... until it realized that it's own crappy propietary memory wasn't selling.
Then it started suing RAM manufactures and telling others that the first ones to license the technology would get lower rates. Sounds like extortion to me.
So some counter sued that Rambus misrepresented itself on the standards committe. Rambus stock sank to all time lows. But now they have won the case. The stock went up.
Pretty simple, eh?
who actually cares what a court in big ol'U.S. decides in a case anymore.
unless you're a terrorist of coourse
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The EETimes article on this story has (besides a lot more meat) a bit of an insight:
"Having framed the duty of disclosure in the above terms, the court concluded that Rambus did not breach its duty as to the SDRAM standard because none of the claims in its patents and pending patent applications reads on that standard," [legal analyst] Balto added.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
The most amusing part is that /. even calls these little one paragraph blurbs written by barely literate submitters STORIES
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Surely this whole case represents incompetency of the standards body & their lawyers. Are patents discoverable? Is this not part of due diligence? I would expect more than a quick question in determining these things. I expect that proper checks are made and binding agreements reached before progressing. It sounds like RAMBUS did the wrong thing...but why were they allowed to get away with it. They should have been caught way back and these issues sorted out. To stand up in court and plead both ignorance and trust as a case will never work.
Why is RDRAM a bad thing for computer users? I think promoting better technology is a good thing for users. If people promoted the better technology instead of the cheaper one, companies couldn't dump their obsolete products on the market in order to decrease sales of the better technology. If people bought a product based on its quality, we would have things like organic LED displays instead of truly obsolete LCD screens and CRT monitors.
I don't know where to stand on the issue of who had prior art, but I have talked to people on both sides and they seem to both have valid arguments. I don't believe any of the companies involved are boyscouts. What I am interseted in is which is the better technology. Obviously, if you look at the specs of Rambus, you will see that although DDR 266 is just a lower stepping of PC133 Ram and the bus is double-pumped. Rambus, on the other hand, has a lot more going for it. Its bus has less traces and allows you to more easily have more than one channel. It is also capable of shutting off portions of itself not in use.
If you look at a Tom's Hardware article It mentions that there is a limitation with using parallel designs due to uncontrolled impedence.
Not to mention that memory benchmarks available on many sites show that DDR can't continiously maintian its bandwidth like Rambus can. Instead, its bandwidth is spurty.
Also, Rambus has many new things on the backburner.
Rambus memory has also become much cheaper. I believe in leaving the decision of whether or not
Rambus infringed on patents to the courts and going for what is the best technology so you can give it a boost. What holds back RDRAM in terms of price is that there isn't enough being sold.
Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
is the most overturned court in the country. Those are the same dipshits who tried to fuck up the pledge to the flag. Are you REALLY sure you enlightened 'liberals' want them?
Does anyone know if it's standard policy to give these highly technical cases to judges have tried similar cases before or have some background in the area? It is unfair to the Judges and the litigants give these cases to Judges who have a weak technical background.
Comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips must be freakin' out about now. Take a look at the google groups archive of discussions relating to one John Course re: Rambus in early spring to mid summer 2000. I believe we may soon see the resurrection of one of the most rabid Usenet trolls in recent memory. Should be entertaining.
-dameron
The company consists of 180 people, including 130 engineers, 45 corporate staff and four lawyers.
since when did 179 = 180? (130 + 45 + 4 = 79)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
WHEE FUCK YOU SLASHDOT I'LL WASTE cock ALL THE FUCK KARMA I WANT BITCHES
/.
suck it cmdrtaco and all the otherfags out there that run
No, I don't mean the stock prices, I mean this...
The company consists of 180 people, including 130 engineers, 45 corporate staff and four lawyers.
I guess CowboyNeil was recently fired from the company?
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
Everything's fucked. Cant people move on?
Yes we're all going to be enslaved and humanity's probably screwed for another millenium. Geeks need to figure out how to obey the corporations and morons. Just live mediocre lives. It's not that hard, millions of people do it everyday. Maybe freedom and liberty is overrated. After all the Russians survived communism didnt they? (though it's true that communists werent well funded).
Sorry. I'm not just getting depressed. I really think this is a losing battle. Is it that "geeks" cant connect with the general public? All over the world the fundamental concepts of freedom are being squashed and there's nothing we can do but observe it and say "damn, that sucks". Why bother?
Now it is OK to lie about something you did to make money, but lie about getting head from an intern while president and you will give the AM radio talking heads foder for CENTURIES.
If we don't put people in jail for copying other people's ideas and music, we'll have to give out all of our exam answers. I have a feeling Suzy doesn't REALLY like me at all!
What applies to people must apply to companies equally, otherwise we've got ineptitude, corruption, and stupidity, evildoers, dogs and monkey doing it, and I'll tell those lazy politicians in Washington that's I'm not gonna take it anymore!
I work hard for the money, baby!
Karma: Bad (mostly affected by being such an asshole)
Such prose by a
Does anyone grow weary of the uninformed bashing? The story is about these two paragraphs
No actual change of verdict on the rambus case, mainly a proceedural flaw. Where in this story is anything that justifies your comment about Rambus and Bush? Most of us eagerly await your evolution into a real human being.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
This is insane, the evidence that RAMBUS commited fraud could convince a blind, deaf and dumb monkey, either they are dumber than grapefruit or they've been bought^H^H^H^H^H^H lobbied, but then again the President just went on TV and told the world that Saddam was using imported aluminum tubes for producing nuclear weapons, whereas the weapons inspectors have found the tubing used to make rockets, I don't suppose you get the video footage over there in the US of these things.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
Not that the appeals court in San Francisco isn't screwed up, but let's get our facts straight, eh?
maybe you meant "reported" news?
" Rambus asks for, what, a 3% royalty on the DRAM which is about $3 for every 512MB. And that cost will be passed right along to me. Sounds good!"
----
Completely wrong. $3 isn't much you think until you multiply $3 times the millions of units of RAM being sold.
If you are asking for back compensation, then the corps such as Micron will need to make up royalties on all those millions of units by passing that onto the much smaller amount of units being sold right now. That will cut into their sales, so they will have to raise prices even more to compensate.
Of course no big corp is going to put up with that, so they will fight it in court. That means win or lose, the corp is going to being passing those legal costs down to consumers and probably pre-emptively before they even end up in court.
So no, you aren't looking at $3. You are looking at $3 royalties + $??? for back royalties you are helping the corp make up for + $??? for legal fees + $??? for the extra money the corp needs to research new non-infringing RAM technology + $??? for administrative overhead = A very significant increase in the cost of memory.
That does not even take into account the reduction in competition this will cause. And we all here know that lack of competition equals lack of innovation and more expensive technology.
"The company's stock soared on the news, rising $54.75, or 57 percent, to close at $11.69 on Nasdaq"...
hows that happen???
why is it so bad? SDRAM is old news, and most new computers use DDR which will not be affected by this ruling. so who cares if SDRAM doubles in price?
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
I didn't read the full decision of the court (and I probably wouldn't understand much of it if I did...I speak Perl, not legalese) but something seems wrong when a 3-judge federal circuit court can overturn the ruling of a jury with language like that. I mean, if the administration of the case was mis-handled or the judge screwed up...I could perhaps understand. Maybe someone more familiar or more enlightened could explain this further.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
God save the queen!
Did Qualcomm wait till CDMA was the only industry standard out there and then decide to collect royalties? There is a big difference between licensing technology, or tricking people into using what they think is free tech, then after it's been established charging them for it.
'Nother dot-bomb trying to make money via suits versus innovation.
If their technology is so good, then why should be protest paying for it. If it's so bad, why would we buy it?
*Shrug*
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
The really strange thing (to me) is that back when I first met ChrisD (back when he was involved with SVLUG), he was as intelligent and insightful as the next fellow. Now he joins the /. editorial staff, and he suddenly seems to have lost the ability to read or comprehend. Is it possible that working as a slashdot editor can actually cause physical brain damage? :)
Indeed, the jury is still out (as it were) on Rambus. They have won a decision, but not the case. The case is going back to the lower court.
Wow, I didn't know that. Has Phillips done any awful things in the meantime, or can I actually like an electronics company for once?
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Maybe if we would have slowed the pace, not tried to jump start the PC industry with clock speed wars and bus bandwidth statistics, and as an industry concentrated on elegant solutions, innovative design and bringing something truly new to the consumer the market for PCs and software would not have stagnated so brutally? It's more than obvious that the current approach failed.
The massive interest in the first wave of iMacs proves that consumers are hungry for something new, but marketing clockspeed and Apple's insane need to keep prices high killed that movement. Maybe a glimmer of hope from Small Form Factor or Mini-ITX (which I sit and type from at the moment)?
What the hell does this have to do with Rambus? Rambus is part of the brute force/clockspeed eccentric computing industry. They have zero interest in the customer or industry partners, just in money (I know, I'm a capitalist pig at heart too, but there's more to it then that). When their product doesn't sell, they sue their partners, partners gained under false pretense.
So would the industry be better off if we were just getting to 2gHz? If DDR was just taking off in the market place? If Microsoft concentrated on fixing Windows 95 instead of pushing out incremental upgrades every 18-24 months? Would processor upgrades feel really substantial if the architecture were more elegant and devs more concious of performance? If Linux devs stopped trying to emulate the Windows desktop and feature creep and tried to break away from the desktop metaphor? Would it be a better industry (and would the consumer still be interested) if Apple had 30% market share and users really had alternatives?
Yes, the market would be more fragmented and support would be more challenging. Yes, 3gHz is cool, but who needs it? Yes, XP is better than 95, but could we have gotten there in 2 upgrades instead of 5, and caught the security holes along the way. How cool would the Linux desktop be if KDE was built from the ground up not to be like Windows (flame retardent boxers activate!)?
We would certainly have fewer 800lb gorillas, and a more interesting landscape. I think so...
This is the most overturned court in the United States, ever! This court loves government control of things and this ruling will serve to that end by strengthening some of our absurd patent laws.
Derek Greene
The decision was by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. It is a special federal appeals court that hears patent cases and special federal issues such as takings, veterans affairs, and federal contract disputes.
The outcome is surprising on its facts, as the documentation shows that Infineon had actual intent to deceive other members of the memory industry.
However, the Federal Circuit now has a twenty year history of ignoring the law and creating its own jurisprudence in favor of strong patent rights. In the process, economic efficiency, fairness, and consumer protection have been lost.
Although the court is limited to patents, it frequently rewrites antitrust law to exclude liability for patent misuse. It frequently revises claim constructions on an ad-hoc, nonsensical basis that is impossible to predict, often ignoring the patent itself, and almost always in favor of the patent holder.
It has made invalidity harder to prove, requiring printed documentation of all elements of a claimed invention, and has limited obviousness to a very narrow set of circumstances where documents actually state that a patented combination is in the prior art. This is somewhat of an oversimplification, but it is unfortunately almnost accurate.
It has expanded the realm of patents to include business methods (harming free enterprise by making the mere right to enter an industry subject to patent rights), genomes (which, while they already exist, are always useful for growing hair--by using this claim they can cover all uses for the genome), and algorithms.
It frequently ignores federal procedural law, and has been reversed a few times by the supreme court on these grounds in recent years.
While many on slashdot frequently cite the "Microsoft Patents 1 and 0" story from the Onion, the Federal Circuit has actually gone that far in real life. In a patent case brought by Excel Corp., the Federal Circuit affirmed the validity of a patent over a one bit flag used to determine whether two parties on a phone were using the same phone provider.
Yes, Excel has a patent on a one bit flag (ones and zeros) when applied to phone networks!
There is much more to say about this, but that is for another day.
Maybe $3-5 pisses you off a whole lot
Now watch Rambus charge $3-5 per stick of RDRAM but charge $30-$50 per stick of SDRAM or DDR SDRAM.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You! Yes, you.
... what is that you might ask?
Time to learn about Docterine of Lasches
Well, its illegal to sit on a patent that you own, and purposely delay patent litigation for your own financial gain. If you didn't know about the infringement, then its fine. Not every company can act as a world-wide watchdog for patent infringers. But if you knew somebody was using your patent, and you held off on enforcing it for your own financial gain, there are precendents that make this illegal.
Link and learn
"Old man yells at systemd"
What they seem to be saying is that the disclosure requirements set by JEDEC were insufficient.
Any company involved in standards bodies is engaged in a sensitive dance. On the one hand, they want to create a standard that will enable the industry, and increase the total market size; on the other hand, they also want to try to build in a competitive advantage for themselves, so that they can get a bigger slice of that market. Knowing this, JEDEC should have had better disclosure rules.
er, I'll learn to link, first .. but herer it is
"Old man yells at systemd"
Admit it. You're just new here and bought that LinuxGeek account off of someone so everyone would defer to your fairly low user ID.
RTFA before making an inflammatory post? Bwaaha. You must be confusing this place with C.O.L.A..
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
1) Do the Slashdot editors get paid at all to edit Slashdot? Maybe they're masochists and just in it for the abuse.
2) There seem to be several Slashdot editors. Is editing Slashdot a full-time job for that many people ?
3) Just how many people work at Slashdot? Yeah, I know, "about half"(baa-dum!)
4) Do the editors actually work for VA Software and do this on their coffee breaks?
It doesn't matter if you bought it when it was around $400 per share a while ago.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Rambus v. Infineon Technologies [corrected]. If the site asks for a password, hit "Cancel" and the document (a 60-page MS Word file) should appear.
Harry beat you down!
Again. The 9th circuit (based in San Francisco, covers pretty much the West Coast states plus some others) has the worst record in that it is overturned more often than any other circuit.
This circuit has made a number of just plain nut-ball rulings. So the fact that they ruled for Rambus in this case is not surprising, just disappointing.
...no kidding.
:)
This so called 'web site' is a wall in a bathroom at a truck stop...such things spelling and grammar, along with logic and credibility are further down the road.
You seem to think this is some sort of legitimate news site...that's funny
~~~
DDR-II needs to get in and replace DDR ASAP. From what I understand, DDR-II doesn't violate any Rambus patents, so no potential royalties. I know that if Rambus gets its way then it would get back royalties for tons of stuff, but still...
are you talking about?
I have a pet rock, and a hula hoop I'll sell you.
Regardless of the anti-competition crap around these days, I make it a point to not support bullshit. Fuck you Rambus, fuck you
I was working as a videographer when Rambus went after Infineon in the 4th circuit court (Richmond, VA). I sat in on a LOT of depositions, both from Rambus witnesses, and from Infineon witnesses. I have to say the Rambus lawyers were always polite and wonderful to work with. The Infineon lawyers were always blowhards and bastards. If a Rambus lawyer had to delay a deposition, s/he would make sure the clerk and I were notified as soon as possible and, if we were already on site, would make sure we could get a meal if the delay would make us miss lunch or dinner. The Infineon lawyers went beyond ignoring us to being just downright rude.
I have to say, compared to the legal issues, this is neither here nor there. I just found it interesting.
On the other hand, after listening to deposition after deposition, I heard more than I'll ever want to know about JEDEC, Rambus, and anything related. Even to me, who works with computers but hasn't brushed up on electronics in years, it was clear, after several weeks, Rambus was hanging onto a thin thread and was basically bluffing.
I remember one lawyer going on and on with an expert witness. He kept asking if a flip-flop was switch and if it could be considered memory. The lawyer kept badgering him for a yes or no answer. It got even more fun when the witness finally asked if he was talking about an RS or JK flip-flop. It was clear, at least to me (and I'm sure to the witness) that this lawyer had not even read the most basic info on electronics and memory.
The judges sent the patent infringement case back to a lower court for reconsideration, saying it had failed to properly define five key technical terms.
That looks crazy to me. Unless these are legal terms, the patent is silly.
I'd also like to know what you mean by this:
The court also overturned the fraud charges because they felt that the JEDEC did not uniformly enforce their patent policy. This decision shows why it is important that these standards groups be very strict in composing and enforcing their patent policies so crap like this doesn't happen.
Were the other parties really lax, or was this the fraud that everyone says it was? You are not saying that Rambus should have uniformly enforced it's bogus patent claims are you? It almost sounds like you are blaming the victims for Rambus's foul behavior. Is there a good reason to think that Rambus acted in good faith?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You did know that the right to a "jury of peers" doesn't always apply in civil court cases, didn't you?
Nit: Amendment 7 guarantees Americans the right to a trial by jury.
Will I retire or break 10K?
SDRAM is old news, and most new computers use DDR
Which is a form of SDRAM (when it's not a dance simulation or part of Germany).
which will not be affected by this ruling.
What makes you believe that this ruling does not affect double data rate SDRAM?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Glad they can afford to pay off the judges.
The US justice system stinks.
And don't even get me started on their foreign policy.
Don't forget: (5) Not bothering to read what stories have already run and posting duplicates; (6) Not botherng to read much of anything else and posting stories two days after the rest of the world knew about them.
Here's a twenty. Can somebody send Timothy out for beer?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This doesn't seem to work very well. It's pretty clear that compuserve knew about people using GIF-encoders without paying them royalty, but that didn't stop them from waiting many years and then enforcing their patent.
There are many great ideas in the patent-system, unfortunatly only the bad onces seems to work in reality
Failing to learn from history dooms you to repeat it.
Hehe...but not if you own some Rambus stock
You might be able to trade a dozen shares for X megs of RAM soon. Good for you! The rest of us will have to pay a $100 or so. The situation will only change for the rest of us if they really get their way. Then we will have to pay $1000 or so, buy you will still have to trade in that stock. Hold it dear!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
yea...I know....like I said....scary huh? I think it's more scary than the Rambus thing in the long run. (SEE! it isn't that OT).
Anyways, the Oval Office scene now looks like something from "Revenge of the Nerds" (Guess who the nerds are.....)
It is not true in civil cases.
Here's the text of the Seventh Amendment:
Doesn't "Suits at common law" refer to civil cases? Or are there exceptions to this amendment, as there are to the First (such as shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
And insulting? I'm thinking your parents didn't raise you very well or something like that.
DUH! And no..I don't remember it as if I experienced it. I'm not THAT old. (Strom Thurmond joke....rimshot plz). /.
Anyway my point was to be specify as opposed to vague (in other words, just like not all people from the Middle-East are terrorists, not all current Republicans are terrorists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hracists [sorry....got shallowed up by the literary rhythm]. And also true is just because I look and sound white doesn't mean I like to wear bedsheets [400 count Egyptian cotton for me btw]) IF you want vague, go to news.com or something, not
FYI and BTW, this post contains enough sarcasm to feed a family of six.
I suppose I could goggle for a definition, but I'm too lazy right now. Maybe later.
Think of the law as a system that's been in use for hundreds of years, based on traditions going back a thousand or more, with continous mods and patches and local variations and the phase of the Moon. (Makes you think about lawyers in a new light eh? Law hackers? Hmm... NAH!)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
well that could've made more sense.
or, for that matter, any sense at all.
OK, so now Rambus is going to try to collect royalties from SDRAM manufacturers. Does this mean they will be able to collect royalties from DDR II manufacturers? This ruling might be a good thing. Assuming Rambus can not collect royalties on DDR II; that would be a great reason for memory and chipset manufacturers need to quickly adopt the new technology.
DDR's price/performance ratio is the ONLY reason Rambus prices have come down out of the stratosphere.
-ted
Prices do go below zero once in a while, at least for REMIC residual interests. (Of course, they tend not to be good buys even when you're paid to take them.)
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
Can't I just excuse it as a brain fart? Actually, I am just getting older now.
But, it does seem that people I encounter here lately have a strength of belief that is inversely proportional to their understanding in many issues.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
From the article
"The company's stock soared on the news, rising $54.75, or 57 percent, to close at $11.69 on Nasdaq."
How do you raise your stock price $54.75 and only end up closing at $11.69? You can be in the negatives nowadays? Or was there some sort of stock split they didn't mention?
Question everything.
"Suits at common law" does indeed refer to civil suits, but only those "at law."
The more significant exception is the word "preserved": you are entitled to a jury trial only in those cases for which the common law provided one at the time the amendment was adopted. This makes the analysis of "at common law" extraneous, because only the law courts provided for trials by jury: the equity and ecclesiastical courts provided trials only by (their equivalents of) judges. (Equity courts heard, among other things, cases involving remedies other than money damages; Delaware still has a separate "chancery" court. The ecclesiastical courts heard divorce actions, and other stuff no longer relevant.)
The seminal recent case interpreting the amendment is, in fact, from a few years ago on patent law. The trouble was, of course, that patent law in its present form did not exist in 1790, but the Supreme Court found the issue of infringement close enough to cases handled in law courts then. Thus, either the plaintiff or defendant may demand a jury trial.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
Bet you it gets thrown out. The 9th circut are basically, well, morons. The supreme court overturns an amazing amount of their decisions. Over 50%. I'm guessing this case will die in the end.
I hereby find Rambus guilty of being deceptive sleazebags and assign a penalty of no less than 50 lasches to each of the company's top executives!
Dang! I wish I'd known that they were paying people to take shares of Rambus yesterday (at 54.75 - 11.69 = 43.06 per share); I would have taken a lot of them.
Judge Rader's opinion, in a nutshell, is that because the organization's rules were ambiguous then Rambus' conduct can't be said to be fraud.
Unfortunately, Rambus' internal smoking gun documents show that they knew what the rules meant, and intentionally tried to flout them.
This decision, which reversed a jury verdict on the basis of lack of evidence really is "beyond the pale."
I ain't no fancy city lawyer, but it's a pretty fine line between declaring patents and declaring pending patents. Hopefully the appeals judge will exercise common sense and decide against Rambus' claim.
since it means that other options become more economical...
So would the industry be better off if we were just getting to 2gHz? If DDR was just taking off in the market place? ... Would processor upgrades feel really substantial if the architecture were more elegant and devs more concious of performance?
There's no reason to assume that slower hardware upgrades would mean more elegant and efficient code; if anything, it would mean more shortcuts would taken in user experience and whatnot in order to stretch out maximum performance. Ultima VII, anyone?
If Microsoft concentrated on fixing Windows 95 instead of pushing out incremental upgrades every 18-24 months?
There's no reason to assume that if Microsoft left us stuck with Windows 95 for 6 years, Windows XP would be any better. The user experience would almost definitely be worse without the gradual move of applications and drivers and whatnot that happened with the various mini-upgrades, including the whole introduction of Internet technologies which Windows 95 was completely lacking.
It's not like Microsoft was neglecting resources from the Windows 2000 group when it was making the various Win9x upgrades... it's got enough money to fund both. (And Windows 2000 was a damn fine and elegant operating system, security holes (which were never a priority) notwithstanding.)
Heck, if Microsoft hadn't tried and failed with the "whole system is a browser" thing, with single-click icons and web pages as wallpaper, in Windows 98, we'd be stuck with it in Windows XP today...
If Linux devs stopped trying to emulate the Windows desktop and feature creep and tried to break away from the desktop metaphor?
Without a clear goal ('beat windows at its own game') the open-source desktop alternatives would be a whole lot of squabbling sub-projects going nowhere. Beating windows gives people a common, unifying goal that allows many people to work on the same project.
Without that, the Linux desktop projects would be just like all the alternate-desktop Linux projects that exist anywhere... going nowhere slowly.
Would it be a better industry (and would the consumer still be interested) if Apple had 30% market share and users really had alternatives?
Um, sure. Competition would be good. Of course, competition between Intel and AMD led to whole processor-speeds-increasing-like-mad phenomenon, so perhaps competition would've just made things worse.
Your little rant basically boils down to "the world would be perfect if people did things more slowly and elegantly". The real world ain't like that and (more importantly) was *never* like that. Clock speeds always mattered as soon as CPUs were commodized (I know I cared about my 16MHz 286), incremental upgrades were always a way of life, and software is never perfect.
I don't need any shitty drugs to fucking troll slashdot you motherfucking cocksucker. I sat there and made this karma whore as a way of saying fuck you to /. Fucking cocksuckers will never realize that your piety and selfishness will be your end. Fuck you all, I will now kill myself.
The company's stock soared on the news, rising $54.75, or 57 percent, to close at $11.69 on Nasdaq.
So the company's stock rose $54.75, to close at $11.69...having opened at what, -$43.06?
How can a stock price be negative? Does this mean that more shares were sold short than actually existed? So somebody borrowed stock, sold it short, borrowed it back, and sold it short again...
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
You owe me a new screen and keyboard! I'll suueeee!
YMBAL. *OWW* I spilled my coffee, *ARGH*, it burns, it burns!
But seriously, thank you for an explaination worthy of an APL coder. :^) "at law"?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Between friends?
KFG
Congratulations! Per your sig, you are now deemed a "faggot!"
More information can be found at this link.
Have a good day packing ass, fag.
Or maybe I'm just too big of a Sartre fan. Who knows.
Come on, at some stage, a Judge is not going to have ever ruled in a 'technology' trial. Are there training courses for tech Judges? Is there an O'Reilly or a Dummy book? They have to gain experience on the bench sometime. [Which is the reverse of sports really, isn't it]
Yay me!
Sperry/Unisys held the LZW patent. CompuServe was caught in the middle. The whole debacle came about because Welch published in DDJ but--oops!--neglected to mention the algorithm was only available to his own employer.
In Europe and also Asia Rambus claims won't be accepted. This might become an interesting precedent, where the US thinks it can rule the (economic) world by setting "standards" w.r.t. protecting IP, and the rest may get fed up with this selfcentered protectionist interpretation and implementation of IP laws.
depending on when you bought it of course ...
And you're insane if you demand a jury trial in a patent case. Way over the heads of your average juror - even if the facts are simple, the law isn't and the opposing lawyer can gobbly-gook the jury to death. You might as well agree to flip a coin.
but only after 12 o'clock
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
of all the OSs I've used Windows has the wort cut and paste around
okay it can do file objects but whee so what, dont cut & paste too many Excel spreadsheets these days
lets face it, Windows is not designed for serious computer users, it's aimed at droolers. 90% of end users dont even use the clipboard. If you inflicted an X style sweep & copy on 'em they'd be phoning the AOL support line all day.
I'm surprised that plan9's chording hasn't caught on anywhere else. Buttons 1&2 for cut 1&3 for paste.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
While www.slashdot.org is CNAME for slashdot.org, slashdot.org will reply the request for http://www.slashdot.org/ with an error message (code 301), which advises your browser to use http://slashdot.org/ instead.
Slashdot is not blocking http://www.slashdot.org/, it just does not exist.
"There is no law." so says the father of a friend of mine, who is (the father), in fact a New York lawyer.
I know of another very sucessful CEO of a medical insurance company that merged with a bigger one. Earlier in that CEO's career the CEO went to a hearing in a dispute brought against his company. As the plaintiff (other company with valid claims) read off the laundry list of injustices the now CEO's lawyer didn't say a word to respond and kept the later CEO from responding at all.
After a brief recess the judge ruled in favor of the to-be CEO's company.
Later on the to-be CEO asked the lawyer something like: "How come we won the case but didn't even argue?"
The lawyer responded: "I know the judge".
I think the judges on the appellate court should
be fully investigated. If not money then
"favors" were "called in".
What a country: "...liberty and justice... for all who can afford it."
Here in Canada we are taking active measures to fight terrorism:
CANADIAN PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
As we all know, the Taliban considers it a sin for a man to see amnaked woman who is not his wife.
So, this Sunday at 2:00 PM Eastern time all Canadian women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists.
Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort. All men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their house to prove they are not Taliban, demonstrate that they think it's okay to see nude women other than their wife and to show support for all Canadian women.
And since the Taliban also does not approve of alcohol, a cold six-pack at your side is further proof of your anti-Taliban sentiment.
The Canadian Government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity.
God Bless Canada !
IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO PASS THIS ON!
Well, remember, whatever the facts, ONE side must be better off flipping a coin, and it only takes one to insist on trial by jury. It used to be that jury trials in patent cases were rare, but now they happen most of the time.
In fact, the standard advice in jury selection for patent cases is to always do your best to keep college grads and other technically-minded types off the jury. I guess we all just believe we're better at the gobbledy-gook than the other guy.
I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm, LLP does not necessarily endorse the contents of this message.
And if I were on a jury, I would count a lawyer "gobbly-gooking" as a strong negative mark against the party represented by that lawyer. To me this would indicate that his case or arguments are not strong enough to stand on their own merit so they resort to obfuscating.
2 points:
1) The non patent attorney judges have enough experience with patent law at this point that it is irrelevant as to their previous patent attorney experience (read some of their opinions, they know the subject matter as well as the patent attorney judges).
2) The fact that an attorney presents a bad case should not be dispositive of a bad judgement.
All standards of review for the federal appeals court rely on judgements made by the judge or jury (or in some cases the technical fact finder brought in to assist in the determination of claim meaning).
Most important: The court ruled that Rambus did not have a duty to disclose their patent applications during the SDRAM standards setting process because their patents aren't necessary to implement SDRAM. The court did say that Rambus *thought* their patents covered SDRAM, but ruled that what Rambus lawyers thought didn't matter.
So Rambus can't then use this ruling to say "OK, now we can sue everyone who makes an SDRAM chip", because if they were successful in doing so, Infineon et al could go back to court and say that the Appeals court was wrong, the patents do cover SDRAM, so Rambus did have to disclose them after all.
The court wasn't entirely complimentary to Rambus, either... Here's the choice quote:
Also, Rambus patents may cover DDR SDRAM, but they quit JEDEC before JEDEC started working on DDR. The previous court decision had already said that Rambus was in the clear on DDR.
A jury trial could prove to your advantage in a patent case depending upon home court advantage, big vs small and other factors.
A jury can only decide issues of fact which are limited in patent cases.
Most decisions are still rendered by the Judge in a patent jury trial because they are involving questions of law instead of fact (i.e. patent claim meaning)
It was their God given right to be rude to you because they are, for heaven's sake, gifted litigators and any courtesy that they bestow unto others would detract from their resplendant radiance.
Actually, in the situation where you have a little tiny company going up against a really huge one (and the really tiny company has a reasonable sounding case), then I would think that getting a jury might be more preferable, since they might be more swayable by emotion than an apathetic judge.
Common-law juries have always had the power to judge the law as well as the facts. This is mainly relevant in criminal cases or other cases of government-vs-individual, e.g. fugitive slave law cases, or that medical marijuana case in Oakland last week, where the judge wouldn't let the defendant's lawyer tell the jury that this was a medical marijuana case because they'd vote not guilty. But it's still present in civil cases, and is often directly relevant in determining damage awards.
The more relevant disagreement is that questions of fact are seriously relevant in patent cases. Does the plaintiff's patent really cover the defendant's product/process? Was the plaintiff's patent actually new and non-obvious, and are the parts of the patent claims that apply to the defendant's product/process the parts that _are_ new and non-obvious, or are they just the boilerplate, warmup or cooldown parts surrounding the heavy work? Patent claims are normally written in broad, obfuscated language, trying to very specifically cover what's actually true and unique about their product, but not in any way that somebody can reproduce, while implying that everything in the world might be covered.
Juries (and judges) are often _not_ technical enough to evaluate some of the subtleties, so they end up having to rely on expert witnesses a lot, but there's the problem of deciding which side's expert witnesses are more believable. And business method patents are much more accessible to juries' knowledge levels than technology patents - even if you don't know how to write dynamic HTML, you can still evaluate whether
"1. Put your brochureware on the INTERNET. 2. Check your email for orders from customers. 3. PROFIT!!"
is a novel enough concept to deserve a patent.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks