Rambus Wins Appeal of FTC Anti-Trust Ruling

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Rambus has won its appeal in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision said that it wasn't sufficient to prove that Rambus lied or harmed competitors; the FTC had to prove that it harmed consumers in order to fall under anti-trust law. This is, unfortunately, a very dangerous ruling in light of some of Microsoft's activities relating to OOXML because it raises the bar on the proof required to act against such behavior. However, the ruling in the Rambus case was merely vacated and remanded for further proceedings, not overturned. So, if the evidence warrants, the lower court might be able to decide that consumers were actually harmed by Rambus' conduct and rule against them. Alternatively, this ruling could be appealed to the Supreme Court by filing a petition for a writ of certiorari, but the Supreme Court only grants a few of those per year."

Comments

This court is Microsoft's best friend

[hpa]

This is the same court that let Microsoft off the hook on appeal (so Bush could then let them off the hook entirely.) In fact, that same ruling was quoted as a reason to let Rambus off the hook.

Re:Scambust

[mapsjanhere]

The point the judges make is: If JEDEC would have known about the patents and intended patents, they would probably just have enforced RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory)licensing terms. This would still made Rambus the monopolist, just at a lower rate. So the deceit did not give Rambus the monopoly, it just gave it better licensing rates.
But the judges also doubt that the evidence holds up to the light in regards to the deceitfulness the FTC found. It doesn't say in the JEDEC rules of conduct that you have to tell everyone about everything you plan to patent in the future, only that you have to list existing and pending patents (which can be found by a 15 min search on the USPTO website anyway). Rambus "crime" was that they knew they had the ability to patent the technology JEDEC was discussing, and were not disclosing it; something against the spirit, but not the letter of the code for standard setting organizations.

The geek with 20-20 hindsight

[westlake]

if the technology was so widely recognized/easily adopted that it became industry standard during or just after the prosecution of the patents, isn't this a great argument that the patents themselves are invalid for obviousness?

It is an argument that the patented solution was practical and cheap.

Re:IANAL but...

[mapsjanhere]

Harming competitors in not necessarily harming consumers, remember VHS vs. Betamax? We had $1000 VCRs until one format killed the other (clearly harming its competitors). But VHS machines dropped to $30 after it became a monopoly format, because other competitors were able to invest now that the format war was over.