Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Settles With Rambus In Patent Dispute
Tackhead writes "After almost a decade of legal wrangling, Samsung has settled with Rambus over the antitrust case, regarding allegations of price-fixing for DDR and SDRAM memory, that was scheduled to proceed this month. (Here is a half-decade-old summary of the twists and turns of the case.) As part of the settlement, Samsung agrees to purchase $200M in Rambus stock, pays $200M in cash to Rambus, plus $25M per quarter for the next 5 years in licensing fees. No immediate word on the implications for Micron or Hynix."
Hey, where's my check for having to pay for all of this crap in the form of higher memory prices? So we have some elephant mating going on between Samsung and Rambus -- that's cool and all, I'm sure it'll be great for... innovation... or... something, but if there is evidence of price fixing then why is the government not asking for the terms of the settlement as proof of conspiracy to defraud and prosecuting? This isn't "self-regulation" of the market -- this is "let's get out of here before mom gets home".
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
RAMBUS *spit* used deception to get a global DRAM standard encumbered by their bullshit submarine patent.
The Dramurai fought back with price fixing and collusion to lock RAMBUS out of the market.
They both suck, and the only outcome I'd be happy with is one where they both lose. Don't ask me to explain it rationally, but I'd have even been happier with one where only RAMBUS loses. I guess I just hate the patent bullshit they pulled and what they tried to do with the DRAM market more than what Samsung et al tried to do.
The enemies of Democracy are
How do we correct this error?
What I want to know is, how much the lawyers made vs how much these companies actually made, what the court costs paid by our tax dollars were, and if there were any winners in all this!!!!!
If this is innovation at work, then I'll be damned.
FYI, because I wasn't up to speed on RAMBUS's history, checking Wikipedia gives me the impression this company is now a RAM-TROLL. Seems to be the sometimes tried-n-true course for companies whose physical-ware becomes obsolete/vapor-ware, so they choose to populate there offices with lawyers instead of engineers.
The patent system needs major reform to prevent things like this from happening. For those who don't know, Rambus is a patent troll. The short summary of this long saga is as follows:
For years it sat on the board of JEDEC, just as the standards for SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM were being set. It made no suggestions but kept notes. JEDEC rules require that all members disclose their patents. Rambus did not disclose that they had related patents pending. Instead, it tweaked the patent applications to make sure that the upcoming standard would definitely infringe. Never mind the fact that it did not invent anything and the DDR RAM was merely an application of existing inventions to RAM production. But Rambus was granted the patents anyway and went off trolling RAM manufacturers.
It is absolutely disgusting that the system allows people who produce nothing to extort those who actually make things. The best line of business is a patent troll. If you win, you win big. If you lose, the shell company has no assets anyway, so there is nothing to lose.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
FYI, meselfs was not up to date on the litigation history of RAMBUS, but it seems that the right of passage for companies whose products become vapor/obsolete-ware is to fire the engineers and hire the lawyers. Go DDRTROLLRAM (tm)(c) 2010 RAMBUS Corp. All Rights Reserved.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
If you add up Samsung's payout on this deal, it's damn close to a billion US Dollars. Wow, it took some time, but I guess that patent trolling paid off for Rambus after all. They'd never raise that kind of money the old-fashioned way, by making products that people willingly buy.
Of course, with this settlement now, I'm sure Samsung will claim that it did anything wrong. $900 million worth of nothing wrong, to be more precise.
This looks like one of those cases were they are really saying, "Yeah, we screwed you, but please please please take this money so a court doesn't award you nearly as much AND open us up to further suits by consumers or other companies we screwed, since open discovery and an official finding that we did what we did would be very, very bad for us, and will delay the money you will get." So shocking.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
This is so sad. Samsung should have *buried* Rambus for their invalid submarine patent.
And then dug them up and nailed them to a very tall building as a warning for other companies that might try making a buck on IP litigation instead of actually having a relevant product.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
To build the case for excluding software from patentability, it's important to document the fact that antitrust doesn't offer a solution. If someone can help document this, here's the page on the public swpat.org documentation wiki:
Thanks.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
RAMBUS. Along with SCO and Microsoft! Seems that any company that tries to protect their market by underhanded methods ends up putting themselves on most people hate lists.
Including mine. Please go the way of SCO.
Most of Rambus' SDRAM and DDR patents were lifted from the early SDRAM discussions at JEDEC without disclosure as required by JEDEC. They then made a monopolistic deal with Intel to try to shove their overpriced flaky RAM down consumer's throats. Meanwhile, they tried to sue Micron, Infineon, and Hyundai for royalties, in some cases on their own IP. By the time RAMBUS and Intel actually got RDRAM to perform decently, DDR was coming out with inherently cheaper prices, helped by the fact that the manufacturers actually designed their memory for manufacturing. Any supposed 'collusion' only slightly hastened the inevitable.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
The problem is that everything seems obvious in hindsight. If they were entirely useless, why are companies like Nintendo licensing their memory technology?If they were entirely useless, why are companies like Nintendo licensing their memory technology? SCOTUS already ruled that a patent holder cannot sue 3rd party users of a technology for infringement committed by an upstream supplier, so there is no need to license it to protect yourself from lawsuits. Perhaps the technology offers something of value; Nintendo isn't the only one either.
Like I said, RDRAM is decent in embedded apps. This is because it gets relatively high performance for a small number of traces, which is a good tradeoff for a game console but not a PC. And the reason Nintendo is getting a license -- which as you point out would be irrelevant if they were only buying rdram chips -- is because it includes the necessary specs for designing the channel and the IP for the memory controller.
What's "obvious in hindsight" is that RDRAM was a bad choice for the pc industry, and Intel made a mistake by supporting it which they regretted.
But the core issue, I think, is that an American company developed memory technology that foreign corporations desperately wanted to avoid paying royalties for and they colluded to try to bankrupt RAMBUS to increase profits (and screw consumers).
Okay, sorry, it seems you're confused about what Rambus actually invented versus what they had been trying to collect royalties on. There are two technologies in play here: RDRAM and DDR.
Rambus developed RDRAM technology; it is 100% their invention. Nobody ever failed to pay Rambus royalties for this technology. And it was in large part because RDRAM was encumbered by patents and royalty fees that the JEDEC committee decided not to use it. However companies that did make RDRAM, like Samsung, paid them the appropriate royalties.
Rambus did not invent DDR, and they especially did not develop it into a working technology. What Rambus did is listen at the JEDEC meetings as they discussed the new standard, and based on those notes submitted patents that covered exactly what JEDEC was talking about. The technology had already been invented when Rambus got their patent on it, and Rambus did none of the inventing.
The reason Rambus did not receive any royalties for DDR at first was because none of the memory makers knew that Rambus had patents on it. Developing an open, royalty-free memory standard was the whole point of JEDEC, and that's what they thought they were doing while Rambus snuck off and patented the technology without telling any members of JEDEC. If they had informed the committee, then the committee never would have decided on DDR!
Only much later, once it was clear that DDR was going to dominate and that RDRAM was a dead end in the market, did Rambus suddenly reveal their patents and start demanding royalties from the memory makers. This is classic patent troll behavior -- wait until the product implementing the patent is ubiquitous, and the people who unwittingly violated it can't change in any reasonable fashion, then spring it on them and demand extortionate royalties.
That's when the memory makers fought back to try to avoid paying royalties on a technology they never would have used if they thought it had royalties. That's also when they proved themselves to be even bigger assholes than RAMBUS by colluding and price fixing.
I hope that explanation helps. The thing rambus actually invented is not the thing they're receiving royalties for today. However because our patent system is so fucked, by virtue of filing a patent based on what other people were discussing, they get the royalties for it.
I can just imagine if I patented a legitimate invention that the RAMBUS case would give companies like Samsung the idea that they can just bankrupt me, rather than pay royalties.
If you patent something that someone else legitimately invented and then start demanding royalties from them, then I would hope you go bankrupt. But as we can see, this is not how things always play out. The message of the rambus case is clear: Patents matter, inventions don't.
The enemies of Democracy are