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BusinessWeek Examines the Rambus Legal Saga
An anonymous reader writes "Now that three companies have admitted to colluding to fix DRAM prices in what has turned out to be a global conspiracy BusinessWeek takes a look at the why. The most recent to admit guilt was Samsung and no one, as yet, knows precisely why they did it. The short answer seems to be because they didn't want Rambus' memory technology, DR-DRAM to succeed in the market. The more complicated answer is that now that Samsung, Infineon and Hynix have all admitted to fixing prices, they're now lawsuits from Rambus alleging that their motivation was to "kill Rambus" by making it too expensive for it to be attractive for PC manufacturers. Today in San Francisco, lawyers for Rambus are going to argue for the release of a set of documents currently under seal, that they think could go a long way toward proving their case. If nothing else, the timing of the price-fixing, which ran from 1999 to mid-2002 is suspicious, because that was about the same time that the DRAM companies would have been resisting pressure to adopt Rambus."
Rambus has taken a lot of heat for allegedly inserting their IP-protected technology into the JEDEC process and has suffered under that yoke for years. Now it comes out that the companies wailing the hardest were actually out to destroy the "pure IP" company.
I think that in this case there really isn't any good guy because all the parties involved are apparently bad guys.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Price fixing sucks. But this is Rambus we're talking about. Remeber RDRAM? Remember Rambus trying to hold JEDEC (and DRAM manufacturers) hostage through patent claims on DDR?
I'll take democracy thanks
Your "democracy" is currently illegal, so you better do something other then post to slashdot if you want to protect it.
Having said that, I don't think price fixing is good. And this was price fixing. Do you know what happens when companies get together to collude towards a certain price against a competitor (not that this has been proven, but from what I've read, I don't feel it's much of a leap)? Once the competitor dies, they raise the prices. Don't think this was about keeping the price low. It wasn't. This was about big companies protecting themselves against a little start up. Why they felt the need to do so is beyond me. Obviously Rambus had something worthwhile to offer, which they found easiest to combat via illegal business practices.
And to those who will point out Rambus is currently under litigation via an appeal process, to paraphrase someone from the article Rambus's illegal practices is "irrelevant" to the conspiracy against them by at least these 3 companies. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Regardless of what I think, it's quite possible for once that the truth will get out in the court.
Why they felt the need to do so is beyond me. Obviously Rambus had something worthwhile to offer, which they found easiest to combat via illegal business practices.
It wasn't a rambus product that was being combated it was rambuses abuse of patents to extort huge high prices from actual manufacturers of RAM (rambus only own IP, they do not produce anything) for the privilege of producing RAM to a standard that many manufacturers got together to design, but rambus patented and tried to force their patents into the standard.
it would be like if a company came up today and said "oh we don't produce any products but I see we have a patent over DDR-SDRAM so all you ram manufacturers must pay us money". they would be laughed off slashdot. rambus is that company they just happened to get caught. they must be destroyed because they attempt to gain money without producing anything.
The lawyers of course!... "A quarter of a billion dollars in legal fees"?.. and that's from the Rambus side alone. Obscene. Imagine if that money was invested in R&D, instead of this pathetic sleazy game of vile deceit?.
I see the story to be more of a "let's sue anyone we can because we can and that is how we'll make all the money since making money off of patents didn't work"
The problem is, when people go about protecting themselves (or attacking) bad people (or companies) in an illegal way, they deserve the full weight of the law brought against them.
Society follows a collection of rules in order to survive. Together these rules are called the law. When people break the rules, then they harm all of society.
Just think, had they not done this, while Rambus may have survived, they would have been able to have a better case in which to fight against Rambus's practices, and work towards changing, if not abolishing patent laws. As it is, they're illegal practices will now be used to protect Rambus against the law.
I imagine that most people buying PCs don't care about where the memory comes from, and I don't think that the PCs' manufacturers care either, as long as there aren't any "Acer uses teh evilRAM"-style headlines to give them bad press.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
For years has there even been any discussion on /. about major innovation in enterprise-level server hardware? If so, it passed by quickly ... things are certainly not percolating like seven (or even five years ago) during the innovation wars between Compaq and Dell.
/. discussion topics are on a par with the tabloids, except that instead of aliens from Mars we read about some slightly fresher Linux flavor. I used to come here to get the industry bleeding edge, and now I get reports about the latest revision of five year-old video games.
... the way IT budgets are going). Is this a main streaming, or what?!
Now,
My point? Stick with the video games, guys. Don't bother with Rambus shannanigans. Your caring public is gone. Whoever can hang onto an IT job now will have that same job for the next twenty years. (And they'll still be working with the same equipment, probably
More like a rigor mortus, actually.
It seems the whole story does not contain clearly good or bad guys. But it seems that everyone involved is at least ugly ;-).
Regards, Martin
There's talk of Rambus 'abusing' the patents -- but that doesn't make sense to me. I thought that was the whole point of patents; for a limited time (17 years?) you get to be the only one to do whatever it is that you've patented.
If Rambus really patented the stuff, it doesn't really matter whether or not they manufactured anything; that's not how patent law works. But, if you force me to be Talmudic -- I'm sure Rambus can quote a single RAM part at a price of $100 million.
Were their patents crap? If their patents were valid, why shouldn't they've gotten paid? It sounds like they actually developed the technology, unlike some firms (the vultures that just buy up the patents of failed companies and then start suing).
I'm all for chaning the law to suit public policy better, but assuming we've got the laws that we've got, I don't see how "Rambus is bad" translates into "ignore their patents." If you do that, they may as well vanish, as they don't do anything but make IP.
Also, just so you don't think I'm a member of the Rambus Anti-Defamation League, I don't have a dog in this fight: I don't work for them, knowingly own their stock, etc.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
So Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat harmed all of society?
PS: no, I don't think the two cases are comparable - I'm just pointing out the dangers of generalisations.
And have you thought about what happens once the competitor they were trying to destroy is gone?
They go back to competing against each other. You think companies will stay friendly forever?
Samsung admitted guilt because the US DOJ had there ass in a sling and was about to hit them with Billion dollar penalties and jail time for many of their executives if they didn't plead guilty (as opposed to the hundreds of millions and likely jail time they did get.) Infineon pled guilty in this case and the DOJ still jailed 5 of their executives (even the Enron guys didn't go to jail - yet) Imagine what the penalties would have been if they hadn't pled guilty. Micron is the "stool pigeon" in all this - they are negotiating an better deal by turning state's evidence on their competitiors - though their deal has yet to be worked out.
While we're at it, for all the ignorant posts about RMBS submarining the industry with patents and other alleged actions, take a look at another case - the FTC held the longest trial in it's history to prosecute Rambus on those charges. At the end of it, the judge, the senior judge, and AN FTC EMPLOYEE, Made a 300 page ruling in which he enumerated 12 reasons why Rambus was NOT GUILTY of any of the charges leveled against them. Before you go believing the PR of convicted felons you might want to read the reasoned opinions of a federal ALJ. http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9302/040223initialde cision.pdf
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
Indeed, Rambus could be considered a standard "patent factory" -- a company that produces nothing and relies on the patent system to siphon profits from the people who do actual development.
Rambus did not produce nothing; they designed and implemented a very high performance memory bus architecture. This technology was matured to the point that it was practical and stable to implement on high-volume, quality products such as the Sony PlayStation 2 and a variety of higher-end Intel chipsets and motherboards. I won't dispute that they had some bad patent practices, too, but to claim they're a worthless patent factory is disrespectful to all of the highly skilled and dedicated engineers at Rambus.Unfortunately, this is what you get when you pretend to support capitalism but actually have your government artificially subsidize all sorts of companies (through patents, tax breaks, and freedom from the responsibilities individual humans have). The successful companies are the ones who maximize their profits, and if there are minimal negative consequences for some vile act, they'll perform it eagerly. [end of rant]
Oh, cut the nonsense, will you? Capitalism as a means to an end, not an absolute goal in itself. It's not some magical solution to all the world's problems. I agree that the patent system is in many regards messed up, but going for pure laissez-faire capitalism without any government controls would in many ways make things worse. The key is moderation.Man, you packed a ton of errors into two sentences.
Rambus was not "circling the drain", they were a hot "internet stock". While its true that they weren't making a profit, their burn rate was low enough that they were likely to be around for a while.
They didn't "unexpectedly" discover Intellectual Property. That's what they do. That's what they've always been (a company that designs memory interfaces and sells the rights to use them).
The Intellectual Property was not ill-gotten and they did own it (see my comment below, however). They actually employ engineers and design things. They just don't build the things they design.
The JEDEC forum did not require them to sign any agreement with regards to patents. In fact, they weren't the only firm that did not disclose patents. That the JEDEC forum should have had patent agreements in place is obvious.
I don't know how to feel about Rambus. Most people just parrot the statements by their opponents in the lawsuits and everything can have a spin on it. Is it "we destroyed documents according to our document retention policy which was created by an outside law firm" or was it "they destroyed documents to cover up their malfeasance"? I just don't know who to believe.
Rambus clearly overstepped when they said (initially) that their patent covered all of SDRAM. Then they changed their tune to say that their patent covered some SDRAM designs and all DDRAM designs. I'm fairly certain that they left JEDEC before the DDRAM design process had started.
The real questions in my mind: Are their patents non-obvious? Are they submarine patents? The USPTO seems to approve a lot of obvious ideas these days. If JEDEC independently designed DDR and it runs afoul of Rambus's patents, that makes me think that their patents likely are for obvious inventions (i.e. the only way to do it).
What I'm saying I guess is that Rambus may indeed be "greedy litigious bastards", I just don't know.
I do not put them in the same category as The SCO Group, however. No matter how bad Rambus may be, they just can't compare to those weasels.
It harmed the priveledged white society, yes.
Remember folks, just because laws are made to protect people, doesn't mean one of them is you.
As it is, they're illegal practices will now be used to protect Rambus against the law.
I'm sure you mean to say "their," just as the submitter meant to say "there are" instead of what he/she used when typing...
They're = They are