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!
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 ...
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.
rambus was a memeber of the people deciding the SDRAM standard and they didn't disclose to the group that they were patenting one of the standards they helped push for (which is now the standard) or something
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.
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
In a nutshell, Rambus thinks that they own (at least part of) the SDRAM specs. When their own RAM flopped due to being too expensive and not offering enough performance, they resorted to suing just about every RAM manufacturer around for using "their" SDRAM spec. Mind you, Rambus did aid JEDEC in defining the spec, but, as I understand it, lied about the availability of some patents that Rambus had so they could be incorporated into the "open" SDRAM spec.
As soon as Rambus's real business began to suffer, they turned around and said "Actually, no, we changed our mind and now you DO have to pay us huge sums of money to use this spec that has now become an industry standard".
So, it's bad for computer users because Rambus is going to levy huge "royalty" fees against other RAM manufacturers, and that cost is gonna get passed right back to us, the customers. Say goodbye to the $12 128MB chip...
Arseholes to 'em, I says.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
Title says it all...
~S
How is it bad? I already paid for everything I own, so how can this ruling affect me?
But that isn't the point. Yes, they have the patent. The problem is that they were part of the standards body (SDRAM?) that pushed for technology that Rambus was in the process of (?had already?) patented. I think it was Rambus's duty to disclose the patent when they were helping to set the standard.
That's not the issue, the issue is that JEDEC addopted the technology as standard and RAMBUS went behind everyone else's backs and patented it. Quoth the article:
Infineon, of Germany, and some other technology companies have accused Rambus of tricking computer-chip makers into adopting technologies for which it held or was seeking patents for chips in a wide range of electronic gear.
Antitrust enforcers at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission leveled similar accusations in a lawsuit filed last year.
This is not a simple case of patent infringement that you seem to think it is.
-- iCEBaLM
Umm iirc this case isn't because Rambus invented the iron-steel-copper interconnecting rails and patented them, it's because they invented them, got everyone to agree to make them the standard, retool their factories to make them AND THEN patented them, pretty much screwing them.
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!
The fact of the matter is Rambus lied to the JEDEC. I don't care if they held the patent (a piece of paper that only has power because you agree it has power) for 200 years. They lied. And shame on you mods for seeing insight in that post. Unless you are so stupid that it truly was insightful.
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!
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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--"
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Crew chief: "Welcome to McDonalds, sir, can I take your order?"
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"they rightfully own the patent under U.S. law no matter how many other people violated it"
Did the government says rambus rightfully owns the "patent" and now no one can copy their ideas?
When I was in elementary school, we called each other "copycat" whenever we imitated someone. I didn't realize at the time that as an adult, you can be sued and put in jail for being a copycat.
Now I'm not going to comment on government's track record of figuring out right and wrong. I'm not going to tell lies to the American people, I'll leave that to others. Something about a beautiful actress and clustery breakfast food.
Well, I should have used the "Preveiw" button.
Karma: Bad (mostly affected by being such an asshole)
What if you sat in on a RAM standards body for several years, secretly filed patent applications for some of their experimental ideas, then abruptly broke ranks and started suing the members of the standards body for royalties on their own ideas?
As I understand it, this is basically what Rambus did. IMNSHO, protocol-based RAM is a stupid idea, anyhow..
- 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!"
It's a different case, and here's why.
At the time that the SDRAM spec was created, great steps were taken to make sure that the spec did not contain patented material, or that the company with the patent did not plan on pursuing royalties. Essentially, Rambus was asked if they had any patents relating to the SDRAM spec. Rambus said, basically, "Don't worry about it."
So JEDEC happily went on to create the SDRAM spec in the confidence that all companies involved had shown good faith.
Later, once SDRAM was everywhere, Rambus tried to make everyone switch to their vastly more expensive Rambus RDRAM. When no one wanted to pay for it, it looked like curtains for Rambus, right? WRONG!
Rambus turned around and said "Oh, by the way, we DO have patents on stuff in the SDRAM spec, and now we're going to collect insane amounts of money because it's now the industry standard."
The issue is not, and has never been, whether or not Rambus's patents are valid. The issue is that they acted in bad faith, violated several signed agreeements, and are putting large portions of the IT industry at risk to preserve their own sorry asses.
So yes.. it's a different case.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Reading the article, I'd say it was a fricking big case of money.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
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.
Actually, due to recent set backs in the music industry the RIAA is trying their hand at stocks however they still can't seem to get their math right
and I'm sure we are all going to get up and go buy some RAM made by Rambus, because of this huge win. Ofcourse you know that this will be appealed. Hey Microsoft won against the U.S. why can't RAM companies beat RAM.
I have no real problem with RAMBUS enforcing their patent, as long as it's clear that they are doing so fully legally.
The primary issues (that I'm aware of) are that RAMBUS is accused of essentially hiding the existence of the patent during the JEDEC collaboration and whether what Infineon has done actually constitutes infringement.
The current ruling seems to indicate that there was no fraud involved in patenting during the JEDEC proceedings, but even that doesn't necessarily free RAMBUS from the onus of proving infringement. Whether the patent itself was initiated fraudulently or not, there is still a clause in patent law that they cannot sit on the patent and enforce it at a later date.
In addition, it would also have to be demonstrated that Infineon (among other potentials) were aware that the technology involved was indeed patented at the time the implemented it. There is a substantial legal difference between willful and incidental infringement. And if it is true that RAMBUS stayed mum about the existence of their patent, it's pretty clear that any infringement that may have occured before knowledge of the patents existence would definitely be non-willful.
I'm certainly not up on all aspects of this case, and there are most likely facts and items that I have no knowledge of, but the general perception is that RAMBUS is using ambush tactics as a profit mechanism.
I have no problems with the concept of patents, and I have no problem with those who hold valid patents, but I do have a problem with patents being used for ambush tactics and the like. Likewise, if Infineon really did willfully infringe, I have no problem with them being brought to task for it.
Obviously, there will be more to come in this saga, so it'll be interesting to see where the dust settles.
Nunc Tutus Exitus Computarus.
------------
"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."
------------
Really? Don't you think it's a slight bit different. The issue is and should be whether Rambus LIED outright to JEDEC. If you made a chip that ran at 10ghz, filed a patent, signed an agreement that said you'd disclose all relating patent claims before helping design another 10ghz processor that would become industry standard, LIE about your patents, disclose patented technology for use in the industry standard, then sue about your patents used in the industry standard, wouldn't that be a slight bit different? Companies didn't just randomly decide to use Rambus' patents out of nowhere.
Were you paying attention to anything in this case?
Wrong analogy.
The right analogy would be you design a very specific way of running at 10GHz. You apply for a patent in secret. You then attempt to extort money from people who adopted your particular design unaware that you had secretly applied for the patent.
It is the secrecy that leads to the extortion racket here.
Hopefully the en-banc will agree,
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
We should just all use DDR ram then.
tcpa SUX!!!!
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
Actually, the SDRAM royalties it has sought are thought to be closer to 0.75%. It was on DDR-SDRAM, which Rambus considered to be a would-be competitor to its own Direct Rambus RDRAM, that Rambus sought a royalty of 3.5%. See this story from Electronic Buyers News in 2001 concerning statements made in the trial.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Perhaps one company owning a significant part of a standard is crummy, but the effect of Rambus royalties is insignificant at best. I read a while ago about the cost of RDRAM. The cost premium has not so much to do with Rambus royalties as it does low yields during fabrication. The story mentioned that in the total cost of a 128 or 256 MB RIMM, some 3-5 dollars was the royalty. This was also when memory prices were significantly higher per meg.
Maybe $3-5 pisses you off a whole lot, but in exchange for great memory design (RDRAM is damn good for P4) I'd say its a small price to pay. I didn't here you complaining that Philips owns the CD standard.
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.
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
Damn 15 minute delay, I thought I would be cool and say the fuzzy math joke first :(.
Why is it unfair to be denied access to a university because you are black, but fair to be let in based on the
Is there a fifteen minute delay on your sig as well, I'm hanging on tender hooks waiting for the rest, is it going to released in installments?
Back slightly on topic how long is the delay going to be for the actual decision, and can Ranmbus afford to wait for the decision to come back?
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.
Does any one have any details on what the five key technical terms are? Could be interesting to see whether they are simply technicalities.
The company consists of 180 people, including 130 engineers, 45 corporate staff and four lawyers.
Is the other dude the stock holder?
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?
I agree it doesn't make sense. Even by assuming it is suppose to be "rising $5.475" to close at $11.69, $5.754 is not a 57% increase of $6.215 which is what it would have to have started at to close at $11.69
It is also not a 57% increase in the assumption that the cloes value was $116.9.
Yahoo should do better reporting, their own stock quoter lists shows the correct values "+4.25, 57% raise" Linked
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
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
I didn't think you could apply for a patent in secret. Doesn't it become part of public domain? It then becomes the responsibility of the other chip manufacturers to be aware of existing patents whilst (ideally) applying for their own.
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?
I just bought a 36-piece silverware set, which included 8 butter knives, 8 forks, and 8 spoons. What was the problem, again?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
A case full of what?
let's hope its a case of the clap.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
" 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 i work for has about 70 people working for it, including me. Since when did 1 = 70? You have many body parts, including an arm, a heart, and an eyeball. Does that mean you don't have a brain? :) It's a bit silly for them to list 179 out of the 180 employees, but not illogical.
(130 + 45 + 4 = 79)
Speaking of fuzzy math... :)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
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.
> but the effect of Rambus royalties is insignificant at best.
Ah yes, the "it only costs us a couple of bucks, why worry" argument. So, when DRM laws get passed, and all the DACs on your sound card have to support DRM and they start costing $7 per unit on the sound card instead of a couple of cents, don't worry? And the same in the CD/DVD drive.. And then the video card makers find out about one of the partners in the AGP spec have a patent on something or other and video cards cost $15 more for "royalties", and then the network cards, and so on and so on, and then all together that brand new PC costs an extra $100 as a result of legislation and royalties, we just should suck it up because it's only a bit here and a bit there?
>I read a while ago about the cost of RDRAM. The cost premium has not so much to do with Rambus royalties as it does low yields during fabrication.
So that's the buyer's fault that they have an inherently less efficient production process? And almost nobody was paying Rambus royalties, because almost nobody besides a couple of Rambus' best friends was/is making RDRAM anyway, since DDR SDRAM is cheaper and faster.
>The story mentioned that in the total cost of a 128 or 256 MB RIMM, some 3-5 dollars was the royalty.
>This was also when memory prices were significantly higher per meg.
The price of a DIMM on a per meg basis will not have any effect on the royalies that go to RAMBUS as a result. If a DIMM cost $25 before and $30 now, when its price would have dipped to $10, it'll still cost $15.
> Maybe $3-5 pisses you off a whole lot, but in exchange for great memory design (RDRAM is damn good for P4) I'd say its a small price to pay.
>I didn't here you complaining that Philips owns the CD standard.
Maybe that's because Philips didn't sit on a council to decide what the next audio system to replace cassette tapes was going to be, secretly patent a whole pile of technology around CDs, then push everyone to adopt CDs, wait a few years for CDs to become firmly entrenched in the marketplace, bring out their own SuperCD(TM) format, watch it tank, and then turn to Sony and all the others who used the "jointly developed" CD standard for all of their devices and go "Hey guys, we've got this patent we never told you about on the CD format to do with X. As a result you all owe us $5 a player. Large bills preferred. Thanks."
No. Instead Philips developed the standard themselves with Sony's help and both licensed it to everyone, up front, with clear and open terms . And, Philips is rather adamant about defending the standard as well. All of these "copy protected" audio discs aren't allowed to use the "Compact Disc" logo, you'll notice. Philips won't let them.
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.
exactly. just like the chewly's gum salesman in Clerks. heh
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
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
And since when did 130 + 45 + 4 = 79? :-)
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?
Yeah, I don't get that. Surely that sort of thing should be illegal.
I mean, talk about entering into a business deal in bad faith.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
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"
The parts of the SDRAM standard they claim to own are also present in DDR.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
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
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.
Lack of humility does not imply wide academic acknowledgement, merely that he has faith in his knowledge of the subject, which he very well may, thus his not so humble opinion. Whether you respect that is a different matter, but you're trumpeting your horn louder than he his.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
So that's the buyer's fault that they have an inherently less efficient production process? And almost nobody was paying Rambus royalties, because almost nobody besides a couple of Rambus' best friends was/is making RDRAM anyway, since DDR SDRAM is cheaper and faster. No, it isn't the buyers fault, but I wanted to make clear that RDRAM is not expensive because of Rambus royalties. If your going to rant about a 5-10% price increase, why not track ram prices for 2-3 weeks. If you did, you'd see that they vary significantly regardless of what RAMBUS does. I really can't believe people are getting so worked up over this. The computer market moves fast enough that SDRAM and it's decendents will be antiques in a couple years anyway (what ever happened to EDO RAM?) and standards bodies will be a little more careful in the future. If a standards body has one negative expeirence, you better belive that same mistake won't happen twice.
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.
Yeah, I don't get that. Surely that sort of thing should be illegal.
I mean, talk about entering into a business deal in bad faith.
"should be". Well, the world is full of "should be's".
Unfortunately, the courts don't care about abstract notions like "right" and "wrong", it's all about the law, which is OFTEN "wrong".
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
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?
I love it when you mod that way
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.
your example is a little different than actuality, here's what really happened:
(RAMBUS's business model)
1) Go to JDEC meeting
2) sign a contract that says you cannot patent technology introduced into the JDEC specification, and you must reveal all patents you hold or are pending that may conflict with the JDEC specification
3) Use JDEC specifications to produce a patent on memory technology. Also, introduce your (patented) ideas at the JDEC meeting and get it in the JDEC standard.
4) ???
5) Pofit!
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
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?
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.
Actually, I was expressing my educated opinion on RAM interfaces, seeing how I happen to posess a degree in electronics engineering. I don't like the RDRAM design because serialization of RAM is a tradeoff on bandwidth; adding the necessary communications protocols will further restrict the flow of data. To offset the serial bottleneck, the clock speed must be greatly increased. This leads to greater heat dissipation, fewer units that pass QA, and ultimately, a less scalable solution overall.
Yes, I do have a silly /. handle. That's what I get for using a ramdom name generator program. :/
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."
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
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!
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
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.
and validation of http://slashdot.org returns the same result. Hooray!
Also, oh ye of special talents you will note that another other validator has no problem with www.slashdot.org or just slashdot.org while the w3c's keeps returning forbidden. Funny that don't ya think?
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.
Regarding point 2, judges are people too. If you don't help them to the right decision, they may not find it on their own. Also, there is a certain amount of "panel lottery" in whether a reversal happens. Many reversed trial judges could be affirmed by a different 3 judge panel.
Regarding point 1: not true. Sharon Prost has neither any technical background nor any patent experience. In ten years, who knows, but today a babe in the woods. What is the likelihood that she is up to speed with Pauline Newman? (Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale, research scientist for American Cyanamid, and then patent counsel to FMC Corp., and a patent appeals judge since 1984.)
I think that the court would be struggling less with the doctrine of equivalents (sometimes 1=2, e.g. in the second bit, but never 0=1) if there were more technically confident members of the court. It has turned into a court where English majors play with pushing words around the page.
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.
tcpa SUX!!!!
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