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Rambus Wins Patent Case
Blowfishie writes "Rambus has won a major case they've been fighting since the late 90's. Rambus worked its technology into the standards for SDRAM and DDR data transfer, then waited for the major players (Hynix, Micron and Nanya) to be heavily committed before revealing that it had patents on the technology. 'At issue is whether the developer of a speedy new memory technology deserved to be paid for its inventions, or whether the company misled memory chip makers. "I think they (the jurors) misapprehended what the standards-setting organizations are about and the absolute need for good faith," said Jared Bobrow, an outside attorney for Micron. Wednesday's verdict comes after a judgment against Hynix in 2006 that resulted in a $133 million award to Rambus, Lavelle said, and potentially clears the way for Rambus to collect on that verdict.'"
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Afterwhich Rambus was never trusted in a standards committee again...
Depends. If the chip companies win on appeal (unlikely) and establish case law that standards-bodies should act in good faith (very unlikely), then that could cause Microsoft problems. Most likely, the appeal will fail and trust (together with the economy) will collapse. The economy? Well, if acts of lawless corruption and deception are ruled valid instruments of commerce, who would you do business with? If Rambus can sell Micron one thing when it is something totally different for the purpose of plunder, all entirely legally, anybody can sell you anything and hand over nothing equally legally.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Hynix, Micron, and Nanya should sue the standards committee over this. Maybe that would force all standards committees to proactively get every participant to sign over all patent rights to participate in the standards process. Those companies that want to not do that would have to sit out.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Well, you put the jury in the courtroom, you live with the vote of the jury. Me, I'm not sure what to think of verdicts which don't include a written explanation of the evidence and the reasoning. I know this sounds like heresey to common-law natives, but in my line of work, if you can't produce a coherent written (or at least, oral) account of your reasoning, then it can be presumed that your opinions aren't reasoned.
Oh come on. Who would believe that a company would intentionally work soon-to-be patented technology into widely-accepted standards without telling anyone, then extract patent royalties at gunpoint? That would imply that companies behave in money-grubbing corrupt fashions, the patent system is broken, anti-fraud and anti-monopoly laws have no teeth, and we didn't have an exit strategy from Iraq.
oh. right. carry on then.
The ______ Agenda
Easy - Reform the patent system so Patent Trolls cannot do business ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Umm, no. Not at all. Two people inventing the same thing just means that two very smart people had similar ideas. It doesn't make them obvious (Calculus being the most glaring example... both Newton and Leibniz built their work on existing efforts, but independently made leaps that none had before).
When you see the memos and emails circulated amongst the big RAM players on the JDEC saying stuff like "in the future all memory will be made this way, but we won't pay royalties to RAMBUS" (or along similar lines) you realize RAMBUS isn't the evil patent troll they get made out to be.
The fact is that modern DDR/DDR2 DRAM uses much of RAMBUS' original design elements. Hynix, Micron, Samsung... they all colluded together in an illegal fashion to keep RAMBUS scarce (and thus more expensive) and to steal the technology to implement the next DRAM standard. They were all convicted on criminal charges related to this and DRAM price fixing and most of the companies not only pled guilty, but paid huge fines for it. I think most of the ill-will for RAMBUS comes from the Intel agreement, which was rightfully maligned as a bad thing but has nothing to do with the patent infringement case.
Let's say you are a small inventor who has come up with a new RAM technology. Now let's say you join the standards committee and offer up your new technology for the next standard under RAND (Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory licensing) terms. Instead of accepting your tech for the standard, the big players all rip it off and tell you to go get a lawyer if you don't like it. What would you do? Sit back and take it? You don't have the resources to open up a fab and make it yourself. You did all the research and hard work, you own the patents, but the big boys don't care - they're using your tech anyway. Not a good situation to be in and I don't blame RAMBUS one bit for doing what they can to get some justice.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)