Rambus Allowed to Continue Patent Dispute Case

ZuperDee writes "According to an article at Forbes, Rambus has just won a major victory against Hynix semiconductor. They have also signed a $75 million licensing deal with AMD." The victory? Well, come March they get to go to trial against Hynix.

Comments

Mixed Feelings

[queenb**ch]

I have been the beneficiary of several of their infringed upon patents, enjoying the benefits of cheap memory in almost every device I own. Still, I think that the technology would have gotten much futher had Rambus licensed the patents.

2 cents,

Queen B

Re:Mixed Feelings

[ackthpt]

I have been the beneficiary of several of their infringed upon patents, enjoying the benefits of cheap memory in almost every device I own.

As have I and undoubtably so have pretty much every hardware maker who caters to the budget minded.

Still, I think that the technology would have gotten much futher had Rambus licensed the patents.

Depends. If they were greedy, which I thought was the case as they wanted to push RDRAM, they could have driven completely different architecture to be accepted (which, depending upon what you believe to be the case) they would have proably amended patent applications to cover, too. Nothing like a scorpion in your boot, eh?

Re:Mixed Feelings

[youroldbuddy]

Memory speed hasnt been holding technology back. Memory speed isnt a bottleneck at all. Lack of memory can be, and at the price of Rambus memory they were doing their best to keep technology out of the hands of the average buyer. Other things like, CPU heat, an aging HD technology and inherent limitations to optical media is what hamper computers the most.

Re:Mixed Feelings

[sumdumass]

Intells implementation of rambus mamory was flawed at best. It was slow and sluggish and error prone. I guess that could be intels processor too but thier rambus memory laden crap was just that. I think i remeber some conspiracy theory being thrown around that it was the board manuufactuers causing the slowness at the time but i'm not sure of the validity of it.

In the experience i have had with rambus memory, it was definatly over priced and slowed compared to the competition. I think the AMD K6-2 on RDRAM _apeared_ faster then the faster offerings from pentuim.

Re:Mixed Feelings

[sumdumass]

I'm sure it was debunked. However, It still could have been an excuse for intel's implementations not performing as well as the marketing gurus foretold.

Maybe it was a self incriminating conspiracy theory to throw the bad press into a pitty party and contract compasion from wouldbe byers or loyalist. Nahh, i'm reading too much into what i remeber too little about.

Re:Am I the Only One

[ackthpt]

Who thinks of the Laker's power forward Kurt Rambis of their 80's team whenever a Rambus article appears? Granted they're spelled differently, but my brain doesn't seem to care...

Dunno, but I'm such and old git I think of [Too Much, The Magic Bus], which sounded like (zoomba the magic bus.)

Another yawner

[phavens]

Rambus lost big a long time ago. I always assumed if they sued enough companies they may win one. :\

Re:RAMBUS - Another company people love to hate.

[Stormwatch]

Keep in mind that, unlike SCO, Rambus may actually have a case.

"Hynix"...

[Caspian]

...I don't know if that sounds more like the name of a posix-compliant operating system, a sandwich cookie, or a part of a lady's nether-regions...

Re:"Hynix"...

[Legendre]

The last link is definately worth it, wikipedia even has some pictures of the different types!

Re:"Hynix"...

[Smoke2Joints]

thats some hot shit right there, cheers for the link!

AMD

[PetriBORG]

While I guess I can get behind Rambus's right to sue, I'm not convinced that the whole submarine patent thing can be excused. Of course this forbes article is really light on the history of the cases other then to mention, "Rambus designs and licenses methods for moving data into, out of and between semiconductors."

I'm more interested/worried in the whole AMD part, I do not want to see AMD mobo's running with Rambus's insanely expensive memory on it.

Re:AMD

[aussie_a]

I'm not convinced that the whole submarine patent thing can be excused.

It'd be possible to get rid of them if you forced people to exert their right to the patent the second they found out someone was infringing it (much like trademarks). Or you could always just get rid of patents completely. That'd work too.

I also think that when someone tries to exert their patent by suing, they should be forced to prove they're making a real effort to create a commercially viable product. That way companies will stop patenting stuff willy nilly and wait for someone else to come up with a working system using their patent.

Re:AMD

[treowth]

*** Why do you write that Rambus's memory is insanely expensive? What memory would that be? Do you realize that Rambus memory includes SDRAM & DDRI and DDR2? Yes, is does. Rambus has summary judgments against Hynix for infringing on its IP found in those "Rambus" memory types. Do you mean RDRAM? Are you aware that Memory manufacturers have pled guilty to price fixing memory, including RDRAM? Rambus litigation is complex and like WWII is being fought on several fronts simultaneously. I respectfully suggest you withhold judgment and fear until the litigation is completed.

Re:AMD

[treowth]

I respectfuly disagree. AMD licensed Rambus controller IP, not DDR et al. memory IP. From the press release "The license includes Rambus patents used in the design of DDR2, DDR3, FB-DIMM, PCI Express* and XDR(TM) controllers as well as other current and future high-speed memory and logic controller interfaces." DDR will NOT triple! How do you make that calculation? Do you know what the royalty rate was that Rambus asked for before all the litigation commenced? 5%. That is a far cry from 300%.

Re:AMD

[PetriBORG]

They have the right to sue, just like I have the right to sue anyone. That does not mean to say that they should WIN. That was my point :-)

Re:AMD

[sumdumass]

pattens are a sore subject around here. I can see the reasons though.

Having a working prototype of somethign being pattened should be a requirment to getting a patten. I don't know about being comercialy viable though. Licencing should reflect the ability of the patten holders claim of comercial viability though. It should be ilegal to set on a standards board, Push somethign as a standard then asert a patton claim on it wether it was previously pattened or not.

Re:AMD

[sumdumass]

I'm not the orignial poster but i think we can asume that rambus would be entitled to back payments of royalties. These expenses would be passed to consumers and i would wager they would come quick. Tripling prices isn't too unbelievable to me.

The sad thing is that ram makers can use this as an excuse to increase the cost however they want. They can say that due to the settlement, this product cost X amount more and keep the prices there as long as they want. It is almost a license to colude with thier competitors and say lets raise all prices by 30% and just compete with that understanding.

Re:AMD

[sl3xd]

(I'm just an observer, but that's what slashdot is for...)

IIRC, the big beef with Rambus cost isn't the royalty; as you point out, it's a rather small amount.

The big deal for price with RDRAM was that the stuff was more significantly expensive to manufacture; this meant that while RDRAM didn't cost much more (to a consumer) than DDR memory, it was far less profitable to the memory manufacturers.

How does this play into DDR and SDRAM? If Rambus's patents are held as valid, Rambus gets to set terms for how DDR and SDRAM is licensed.

Don't underestimate the effect this can have. For the sake of playing the 'worst case' scenerio (which may or may not be the end result). To obtain a license for DDR and SDR patents, the memory company (ie. Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Infineon, etc.) must also agree to:
* License XDR (for another 3.5% fee).
* Agree to halt all R&D into new RAM technologies. (ie. give up all ability to develop their own technologies, essentially making it impossible to be self-sufficient again.)
* Agree to license every new whiz-bang buzzword Rambus develops, until the patent expires.
        * All of which in turn requires:
                * Licensing of all new Rambus IP
                * The licensee must halt (or continue to not participate in) R&D into new RAM technologies.
* Increase the price of all competing (non-RDRAM, non-XDR) memory by 300%. (Or even halt all production of competing products entirely.)

The thing to remember about a patent: it is a government granted monopoly. Price-fixing, gouging, and anti-trust do not apply. The patent holder gets to set all terms on the manufacture, and sale of the technology the patent covers, reguardless of how arbitrary, unreasonable, and selective those terms may be. It would be perfectly within their rights to allow any maker but brand 'X' to license their IP.

The broadness of what a patent holder can demand of its licensees is the reason why Hynix, Micron, Infineon, and others have been fighting these patents; the patents literally give Rambus the ability to force any (and all) of them out of business entirely. It's espescially galling to these companies as they feel that Rambus illegally took technologies that were discussed (and developed, depending on whom you talk to) at JEDEC, and patented work and ideas originating from JEDEC (and not Rambus). Hynix, Micron, and Infineon feel much like their IP was stolen, and some thug came pounding on their door for 'protection money.'

Whether that is actually the case may never be known; Rambus destroyed many of the documents that are involved (the article itself states that the Judge ruled that it was OK for Rambus to do this, because the documents were not intentionally destroyed to avoid incrimination in a lawsuit.) I'm quite certain similar things can be said of the various RAM makers; there are no white knights in this tale. The courts will continue to plod through the various cases, and eventually decisions will be made as to whether the patents are valid (and legal) or not.

Regardless of the outcome, a great many people feel that Rambus's patents were obtained in a dishonest way, and feel Rambus is going to be similarly dishonest in how the patents are licenced should they be deemed enforcable.

I've got to say, though, it's looking like the patents will have expired before the litigation ends... the issue is far from resolution, and the patents are about halfway through their lifetimes.

Re:AMD

[treowth]

I agree that a price increase is possible, what a great excuse to slip in more profit! But not 300%. I believe that is totally improbable. Where has that ever happened? If a settlement is reached, it seems likely payment could be made over years - witness the settlement Rambus made with IFX. If Rambus does not settle and the damages are determined in court, the sky is the limit. What is a reasonable royalty rate? 3.5%? 5.0% 1% per patent? In the FTC matter, Judge McGuire opined that if 3.5% was reasonable pre-litigation, that a higher royalty rate would be appropriate after litigation. Regarding back royalties, a willful infringer is exposed to the possibility of treble damages. Still, all this doesn't justify anywhere near 300%.

Re:AMD

[macmurph]

I do not want to see AMD mobo's running with Rambus's insanely expensive memory on it.

However, the inexpensive RAM is inexpensive because its design is stolen from Rambus (and priced below cost with the inention of damaging Rambus' position). When Rambus has their day in court, the guys that make your cheap RAM are going to have to pay. Hynix vs Rambus is the first in many manufacturer settlement trials. That case begins March 6. Seeing that Samsung is already guilty of price fixing and that the RAM manufacturers have been exhibiting cartel like behaviour, Rambus is likely to win.

Re:AMD

[kesuki]

Where has that ever happened?

I beleive the last time that the price of ram doubled (not trippled, okay so in the past it hasn't tripled, but it has doubled) was when taiwan was hit by a major earthquake, that destroyed an incredible amount of semiconducter manufacturing equipment.

normally the price fluctuates based on the commodity price of the materials used to make ram, and yeah i was considering oh, 6 years of back royalties plus legal fees, plus court awarded damages all coming due at once. maybe the price increase won't hit all at once, because they still get appeals, or they can try to get any rulings appealed...

BTW the reason why i mentioned ram with AMD is because Every single Opteron and AMD-64 microprocessor has a DDR memory controller built in. AMD has negotiated a deal with rambus because they can't afford to take the 'risky gamble' that's looking less and less likely to pan out.

Re:AMD

[treowth]

I guessing Hynix will settle and if they do, why not a payment plan? The doubling of RAM cost after the earthquate was due to capacity. That is the supply side of the equation? IFX has already settled with Rambus. Did anybody notice a price increase? As follows is a little slice from an order from Judge Whyte today: "the cases involving the various parties cry out for a business resolution and the sooner matters which have been heard are decided the sooner the parties will be informed where they stand so hopefully they can intelligently evaluate their respective positions and resolve their disputes before further evidentiary proceedings occur" Rambus defeated Hynix's big defense (here is a link to Judge Whyte's Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law http://investor.rambus.com/downloads/Uncleanhandsp df.pdf) and Rambus already has several summary judgments of infringment against Hynix. The next phase is to determine if Hynix infringed further and then the damages for the infringment. Judge Whyte is telling the infringers to get out their check books and cut a deal with Rambus because you won't like the deal I will give you. If the bad actors don't settle and the price of RAM climbs because they end up having to pay treble damages, anger should be directed at the bad actors - thieves, not Rambus.

Any more info on the deal with AMD?

[taskforce]

Does anyone have any more info on the 75MUSD deal with AMD? This is blind, uninformed speculation, but isn't RAMBUS's latest thing XDR memory? The stuff that runs at 3.2Ghz with a muliplier equal to the CPU's in the PS3?

If AMD were to net this stuff for Athlon64s it would explain why they've been holding out on DDR2 for so long and would also prompt me to run out and buy Quad Opertons with XDR very quickly; memory bandwidth seems to be the greatest hurdle on the otherwise extremely broadly equipped Athlon64 line; I can see how it would make a lot of sense to pair it up with HyperTransport.

AMD + Rambus Multicore

[adam31]

75$ mil deal and AMD gets access to "the good stuff". There's a reason XDR is going into the Cell processor, and it's because 25.6 GByte/s is the right bandwidth to feed 9 cores @ 3.2 Ghz. But it's way, way more than you need for a dinky 1- or 2-core processor (for those you're better off spending money on the super low-latency SRAM instead).

So does this mean that AMD is jumping on the many-multicore design bandwagon? They must have something up their sleeve...

Re:AMD + Rambus Multicore

[What me a Coward]

You haven't heard about AMD plans for Quad core Athlons and Opterons then i take it.

I have RDRAM

[Stuupid]

and let me tell you, it is the best value in ram anywhere!

i mean, $200+ for 512MB? can you beat that?!

Re:I have RDRAM

[Fus]

I too have RDRAM. While it is expensive, I have found my measly 128MB PC800 RDRAM still can keep up with SD and DDR (II) RAM. Its a beautiful thing to benchmark 128 RDRAM and 256 DDR II RAM and have similar scores.

Re:I have RDRAM

[Dogmeat83]

128MB PC800 RDRAM still can keep up with SD and DDR (II) RAM

I have 256 MB of PC800 RDRAM. I'm planning to switch to dual channel DDR 400, from what I've read RDRAM is much slower than DDR (dual channel), let alone DDR2. Can you show some benchmarks supporting your position?

Re:Am I the Only One

[m0nstr42]

Actually, when I first read it, I wondered who was questioning the rhombus' rights to be involved in patent law.

Of course they have a case...

[xodonex]

... that's the whole point of patent trolling. I particularly "like" U.S. patent no. 6,721,189, "Memory module", especially the part where it says that In particular, it will be clear to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be embodied in other specific forms, structures, arrangements, proportions, and with other elements, materials, and components, without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof...

Am I the only one to find the article less than interesting, BTW? Basically, "Patent dispute case allowed to continue" is redundant. Patent litigation per se will continue until the patent system is fixed, unless we all run out of money first.

Rambus messed up.

[hackwrench]

One side's opinion is that they joined a memory chip ocnsortium for setting memory standards in which all the members were supposed to disclose their patents on elements that would go into proposed standards, but Rambus didn't disclose their patents.

The Rambus Wikipedia topic is currently in a revert war over this very issue!

Re:RAMBUS - Another company people love to hate.

[DrMrLordX]

That's what I've disliked about RAMBUS, inc. for some time now. They bitch and moan about how memory companies kept price-fixing to keep RDRAM expensive and SDRAM cheap, but this ignores the fact that RAMBUS, inc. refuses to invest or develop their own fabs and produce products based on their own designs. They pretty much expect the memory manufacturers of the world to license their designs so that RAMBUS can use other, larger companies that actually have fabs as cash cows. What a bunch of bastards.

If RDRAM, XDR, etc are all so great, then why don't they build a fab or rent space in somebody else's? Jeez. Even Cyrix produced more of their own chips than RAMBUS.

Whew, glad they pulled through...

[Sierpinski]

Rambus has just won a major victory

and to think of they had NOT had the major victory then their future in the industry just might be possibly been compromised! Just think, a world without Rambus.... *shudder* I don't want to think about how it would be without them.

Hyrax

[aclarke]

While we're on the subject

I admit I'm surprised

[back_pages]

Anybody who has flagged me as a "foe" has probably done so because I am consistently critical of Slashdot's reporting and the Slashdot community's self-proclaimed expertise about the patent system where clearly no such expertise exists. And this story - perhaps the FIRST newsworthy patent article I've seen in at least a year - and it virtually nobody posts. When Slashdot posts wildly inaccurate, simply false stories, everybody and their grandmother comes out to criticise a system they clearly know nothing about.

And this time I had mod points. I gave the story time and waited to see if there was anybody to mod up or anybody to mod as overrated. Instead, this story is actual news, and virtually nobody posts.

Slashdot is the Fox News of Patents.

Re:I admit I'm surprised

[back_pages]

That's probably the most accurate sentiment that I've ever read on Slashdot.

Re:I admit I'm surprised

[thorndove_1]

Actually, you're on my foe list because you keep referring to /. as the Fox News of Patents. I'm not sure who that insults more.

Re:I admit I'm surprised

[ScrewMaster]

Nobody posts because RAMBus memory chips aren't bright and shiny, and don't attract attention. The parakeet syndrome at work.

Re:I admit I'm surprised

[back_pages]

Actually, you're on my foe list because you keep referring to /. as the Fox News of Patents. I'm not sure who that insults more.

Hm, maybe, but I'll insult you anytime you like ;)

Re:RAMBUS - Another company people love to hate.

[optimus2861]

RAMBUS, inc. refuses to invest or develop their own fabs and produce products based on their own designs. They pretty much expect the memory manufacturers of the world to license their designs so that RAMBUS can use other, larger companies that actually have fabs as cash cows. What a bunch of bastards.

You just damned a lot of architectural and engineering firms in the world. Most architects and engineers don't own their own construction companies that actually build the designs they come up with, yet said architects & engineers get paid some tidy sums of money for doing them. There are differences in the fields to be sure (the designs that a&e's do tend to be one-offs rather than repeatable) but the principle's not that dissimilar.

Don't confuse your obvious distaste for RAMBUS's patent/legal situation with the wrong-headed notion that designers don't do valuable work in their own right even if they don't themselves build the things they design.

Re: Memory speed isnt a bottleneck ... oh, sure..

[RambusMaximus]

[DRAM + sync --> SDRAM; If you had original 1992 dram in your Pentium or Athlon, you'd think DRAM speed IS a limitation.] Memory speed has been much increased since the Pentium II by the incorporation of RMBS's patented concepts into generic DRAM. Unfortunately, the major Memory Makers appropriated RMBS's IP without paying royalties. THAT is/was the problem. RAMMAX

Re:Sod

[denissmith]

Why was this post modded troll. It is so obviously a joke that the moderation is very questionable.