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Rambus Patent Claims Dismissed
Gogo Dodo writes "The patent infringement claim by Rambus, the SCO of the chip world, against Infineon have been dismissed by a judge in Virginia due to Rambus destroying documents relating to the lawsuit." Of course, Rambus is already planning an appeal, so this may not be over just yet.
I think after Enron and Arthur Andersen, if you touched the documents you're gone.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Rambus faces a patent infringement suite from SCO for using their business model and becoming the "SCO(tm) of the chip world"
The stupid thing is, litigation was not "brought about." They brought the damn litigation! I guess they just didn't realize how stupid their claims were until the ridiculousness of it all became apparant in court. Then they probably shredded the documents to cover their ass, avoid countersuits, etc.
I, for one, think it's about time the slash overlords created a Legal section. This really doesn't have anything to do with online rights. Similar to the Politics section, a Legal section would hold stories like these, SCO's machinations, and any other article where it's two companies duking it out in court and where my rights aren't affected.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I'm sure we all are. Since this is Slashdot however I find no need to back up my wild claims with solid facts.
Fascinating Entendre
To be fair, it's really an unfair comparison.
SCO is a IP litigation company which purchased a company with many valuable copyrights (IE: Code) to sue others into oblivion.
Rambus is a technically adept company with many valuable patented technologies, which squandered what advantages they had by trying to lock everybody into their tech and sueing anybody who competed...
Buyer beware.
I can't sue IBM because they soldered the procs into their early mother boards.
Someone hates these cans.
You are assuming that they did destroy evidence. If you lost the right to appeal a decision based on findings in that decision, you'd end up with a catch-22 type situation that could be abused.
They'll get their appeal. If the appelete court finds nothing wrong with the lower courts decision, they'll lose. If the lower court erred, they'll get a do-over, and they'll win or lose on the merits.
Man, I really hope they win the appeal. I'd hate to see them lose their ability to innovate.
It's about time. The courts need to begin to seriously sanction deceiptful and fraudulent behavior, otherwise, Chaos. This is a minimal sanction. Surely the judge recognized the previous fraud conviction, tossed but..., as well as clear document destruction makes this a no brainer. At all levels - Court of Appeals, Supremes, GWB, Congress - I think Rambus' credibility is SCO'd. Busted Rambus! Stick to your own inventions next time please.
he thinks people who constantly complain about dupes are dumb.
Oh really?
I think dupes, especially ones posted within the space of a day, are an indication that the editors are not even reading their own site. There have been numerous recent examples of editors failing to check for working links and at least ensuring a hint of accuracy in submission text, along with proper attribution, before posting. If they're going to take the time to post something on a page viewed by millions, they can take a few extra minutes to make sure it isn't crap, or posted two hours earlier and three items down the page. Otherwise, wtf are they doing all day?
Really, if the editors/authors can't live up to their self-granted titles, and can't give the viewing community--which is helping pay for the site either through ad views or subscriptions--a greater degree of oversight that they won't do themselves, I see no reason to ever subscribe. As it is, I'm pretty close to mapping slashdot.org to 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file and staying away for a while.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
First, it's about time. I worked as a videographer in 2000-2001, and taped MANY Rambus/Infineon depositions. I was glad to be in the know about what was going on, but after a while it got quite boring -- except in situations where a lawyer was questioning an expert. I remember one time an Infineon lawyer was questioning a Rambus hired expert and asked him what a flip-flop was. He answered a switch, then the lawyer asked him if it could be used as memory, and the expert (rightly, if you remember your electronics) said in some situations. After an hour, the lawyer still wasn't clear on what a flip-flop was, but the expert had answered every question accurately!
It was pretty clear, from the beginning (I think one deposition I had to do one Saturday morning was the first in the case), that Rambus was trying to pull a fast one, but all the technicalities let them keep doing it. Unfortunately, the Infineon lawyers were, almost every single one, rude, pompous jerks that reminded me of Commandant Klink swaggering around like they were important and the Rambus lawyers are calm, polite, and great to work for. It was a shame to see the nice guys on the side I hoped would lose.
I have to post anonymously, because I actually KNOW something about this. I was a Rambus licensee, and did a Rambus-based design. I have been to Rambus headquarters. I also know people who were at the JEDEC meetings at the time in question.
IMHO, your first two sentences are absolutely true. The third is/was false.
At the time I dealt with Rambus, they had competent engineers and really did have some decent IP. When I was there, I saw a 50-50 mix of engineers and managers, but on my way through the building saw a decent number of CAD-equipped cubicles.
IMHO, all the litigation is based on what WAS a decent patent application. They just extended it and drew claims on it that they had no business doing.
Caldera was previously best known for buying Novell/Digital Research's anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft for the numerous abuses Microsoft made against DRDOS. Once Caldera won that one, they spun off what was left of the DRDOS development team in the form of Lineo.
It's fair to say they are, for the most part, an IP litigation company. They've had some good people (good in the sense of not evil) people running them for the times they've been Caldera + Some Company With Something Real For Sale, but they keep returning to a theme, spinning off the companies that do the real work and keeping the lawsuit material.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.