Supreme Court Sides With Rambus Over FTC

afabbro writes "The US Supreme Court rejected the FTC's bid to impose anti-trust penalties on Rambus. Without comment, they let stand an appeals court decision favoring Rambus. The FTC had found that Rambus undermined competition by getting secretly patented technology included in industry standards, but the Supremes evidently didn't agree."

Comments

The Supremes

[Muad'Dave]

So the Supremes didn't say "Stop [bundling secretly patented technology] in the Naaaame of Love"?

An Underhanded Move by Rambus.

[purpledinoz]

I was really hoping Rambus would lose this case. This decision is a loss to everyone because it means that companies can now secretly get patented items into standards, which will really hinder the standards making process (which by the way, is a great benefit to the consumer). I hope everyone just refuses to do business with Rambus and let it go bankrupt.

Re:A Hard Lesson Learned

[MiniMike]

Unfortunately, I think the lesson propagated here is that you should sneak your patents into standards you are supposedly helping with, as no harm will come to you from your misdeed. Rambus and Microsoft are not the first companies to do this, and thanks to the encouragement they received from the Supreme Court they probably won't be the last.

How the Court Works

[north.coaster]

The FTC had found that Rambus undermined competition by getting secretly patented technology included in industry standards, but the Supremes evidently didn't agree.

Actually, the Court's decision not to hear the case only implies that a majority of the judges did believed that there was a compelling reason to hear the case. Quoting from here:

The Court grants a petition for certiorari only for "compelling reasons," spelled out in the court's Rule 10. Such reasons include, without limitation:

• to resolve a conflict in the interpretation of a federal law or a provision of the federal constitution
• to correct an egregious departure from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings
• to resolve an important question of federal law, or to expressly review a decision of a lower court that conflicts directly with a previous decision of the Court.

Which of these reasons would have justified the Court to hear this case?

Re:A Hard Lesson Learned

[manekineko2]

After more digging, I think I get it now.

A fraud action actually was brought by those injured by Rambus' purportedly fraudulent actions, i.e. the other memory manufacturers. The FTC wanted to also punish Rambus, so it brought a separate anti-trust case against Rambus, which was decided for Rambus by an appellate court, and that is what was just turned down for review by the Supreme Court.

The fraud actions failed after juries decided that Rambus had been showing off these technologies before the standards board meetings, and that the JEDEC standards board rules don't clearly require disclosure of the patents. Source:
link.

For what it's worth though, Rambus seems to be having difficulties enforcing its patents. Apparently, it destroyed key documents related to them.
Source:
link.

Re:A Memory manufacturor

[sexconker]

Rambus makes RAM.

Rambus essentially stole trade secrets / patented info and jury rigged them into various standards, thus making them no longer a secret and the patents unenforceable.

The people behind those secrets and patents got pissed and sued Rambus.

The lawyers have been slapping their cocks together for about 17 years, several of which have been in relation to this case.

There were decisions, there were appeals, and now the end of it is the Supreme Court ruling that lets Rambus get away free and clear.