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."

Comments

Missing a detail

[girlintraining]

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".

Re:Missing a detail

[Corporate Troll]

Look at it another way.... Perhaps Samsung gets some access to the patents of Rambus. Don't forget Rambus was a serial memory protocol. Everything in the x86 architecture is going serial, be it USB or PCIe. It's simpler to manage for interference. It might lead to better memory technology and if Samsung isn't being a bitch, it might be for the better of all of us.

The only Rambus machine I ever had was a dumpster diven P-IV 1.9GHz with 512Meg RAM. No way to upgrade the RAM because even on eBay RD-Ram was out of price. It's relegated to server duty at a proto-geek friend of mine. However, it was a rock-solid machine.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if Samsung plays this right (and has the patents), memory technology might take a significant advance....

Probably just dreaming... *sigh*

Re:Missing a detail

[Monkeedude1212]

Hey, where's my check for having to pay for all of this crap in the form of higher memory prices?

Clearly you misunderstood how the system works. You, the consumer, want to buy an item. The price is set by them, the corporations, at whatever they want. They can try and work together to raise the prices to eff you in the ay, making you pay more. If anyone rats someone else out, or if they are merely discovered, they go to court. They end up paying royalties to another corporation, not you. The government is already making money off HAVING the lawsuit in the first place, so they have no desire to investigate any further. Since profits are down from the lawsuits the ones prices naturally go up. And the winner can raise his prices to match.

Thus, the money stays within the corporate circle, and their falace goes further into your rectum.

Welcome to corporate America.

Re:Missing a detail

[zlogic]

Rambus had a lot of limitations - like needing "terminator" modules in empty slots. Memory had to be installed in pairs, and it generated a lot more heat than SDRAM - even low-end modules required heatsinks.

Re:Missing a detail

[petermgreen]

I'm not convinced putting a complex interface chip on every module is a good idea. They tend to result in memory modules that are power hungry (read: a pain to cool) and expensive intel have tried this twice (though the second time they only did it with the server/workstation stuff), first with rambus then fbdimm, both times they backed down (the latest xeons have on-die memory controllers that work with plain ddr3).

Plus every extra stage you add to the path between CPU core and memory adds latency, memory latency is bad if you have code doing significant random access to the ram.

Bah, why couldn't it be lose-lose?

[Chris Burke]

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.

Rambus is still around??

[XanC]

How do we correct this error?

Re:Rambus is still around??

[moosesocks]

I think the parent was trying to be funny. RDRAM was notoriously prone to errors, and had to use ECC all the time in order to be usable.

Insane

[RelliK]

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.

Re:Insane

[rabtech]

You should dig into the details of the case in depth, more than what you've read on slashdot. RAMBUS did do some shady things, but let us not forget that all the major memory makers plead guilty to price fixing and collusion. Some of their executives went to jail. They paid the largest antitrust fines in the history of the USA. We also have documented proof that they admitted (in regards to RAMBUS) that "all memory will be made this way ... hopefully without the royalties going to RAMBUS".

Perhaps it is likely that RAMBUS was not really welcome on JEDEC because the major memory makers knew their patents applied to the technology and wanted to avoid paying royalties.

Whatever the truth is, RAMBUS is not a patent troll by any means. They do real R&D to develop legit memory technologies, which is legitimately licensed by manufacturers. And in fact without the use of techniques RAMBUS pioneered, we would not have DDR/DDR2/DDR3. They just haven't necessarily played nice or avoided doing shady things. That doesn't make them an IP holding company that snaps up patentns with the goal of trolling larger companies.

Re:Insane

[Chris Burke]

You should dig into the details of the case in depth, more than what you've read on slashdot. RAMBUS did do some shady things, but let us not forget that all the major memory makers plead guilty to price fixing and collusion. Some of their executives went to jail.

No, I don't forget what assholes the DRAM manufacturers were, but it doesn't change one bit what Rambus did either and the OP's summary of rambus' actions is completely correct.

Perhaps it is likely that RAMBUS was not really welcome on JEDEC because the major memory makers knew their patents applied to the technology and wanted to avoid paying royalties.

They didn't apply until rambus changed them in the middle of the JEDEC discussions. "Welcome" or not they were there and did not disclose their patents as required. You'd think that if rambus was on the level and wanted to make sure their royalties were paid, they would have mentioned their patents. But then jedec might not have used that technology, and what good would that do rambus? "Perhaps" (in the same sense as "I imagine") the memory makers knew about the patent; it's 100% certain that rambus did and yet said nothing.

Whatever the truth is, RAMBUS is not a patent troll by any means. They do real R&D to develop legit memory technologies, which is legitimately licensed by manufacturers. And in fact without the use of techniques RAMBUS pioneered, we would not have DDR/DDR2/DDR3.

Oh PLEASE. Chip-to-chip interfaces were already using both edges of the clock and it was obvious DRAM was heading the same way, the "techniques" for doing so were already well established. If not for rambus, we'd still have DDR and successors, because that's what jedec was going for despite rambus' contribution to the committee, which was nothing.

Rambus may not be a perfect example of a patent troll who just buys up other patents, but their behavior of sitting quietly on their patents until years later when products that violate them are ubiquitous then suddenly leaping up and crying foul matches the rest. "Patent submariner" is almost as bad as "patent troll" to me. They're both flagrant abuses of the patent system.

They didn't do as much quality R&D as you may think they did, either. It was Intel who actually did most of the work on figuring out how to make rdram actually work.

Then the memory makers showed they could be even bigger assholes, and got their just deserts. Again, why this should improve my opinion of rambus, I don't know, because it doesn't change anything they did.

Re:Insane

[Chris Burke]

"RAMBUS is not a memory, it is a memory system including controller, bus, interface, protocol and memory. One day all computers will (have to) be built like this, hopefully without royalties going to Rambus."

"Like this" to me refers to the very generic description of a fully integrated (in the sense of 'designed together' not 'integrated on a piece of silicon) memory system. A straightforward statement on the direction the industry was going. That's very different from saying "all computers will have to use rambus technology, hopefully without paying rambus royalties." Thinking in terms of a memory system is not a patentable invention.

As far as I'm concerned, Rambus invented the memory in your computer about 20 years ago and only now is turning a profit on their investment.

DRAM was already headed in the direction of DDR regardless of what rambus did -- double pumping data was so obvious all the CPU makers were already doing it.

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing rambus invented was a terrible memory for PCs (though decent for embedded apps) that they failed to ram down the industry's throat, and only now are they being payed back for the memory makers' retribution in the form of illegal business practices.

Re:Insane

[Chris Burke]

The motivation of the patent system is to encourage people to do research and develop products now, today that will benefit the consumer, rather than "at some point later". That the industry was "already headed in the direction of DDR regardless of what rambus did" is just an anecdote about how technology evolves.

No, it's the fact of the situation that the industry was headed there at the time of rambus' participation in jedec, without rambus' input. Because they didn't give any.

RAMBUS' technology, as described by their patents, had no impact on the JEDEC standards because they did not disclose these patents to the committee in violation of the rules. They were able to abuse a standards committee by tweaking their patents to cover exactly what a standards body was already deciding upon. These facts are not in dispute, the only thing that saves rambus is that these rules were not legally binding. So just like Microsoft, Rambus got to abuse a standards body with no repercussions. That doesn't mean they didn't do anything wrong.

Rambus made it evolve faster under the assumption that they could get some money by licensing it, but they got nothing (until now).

No they didn't, they didn't evolve anything but their own proprietary memory standard. They didn't invent SDR or DDR memory. Or they did invent DDR, but many other people in the industry did too because it's so obvious and they didn't think to patent it. What RAMBUS tried to do was not advance the state of the art in industry. What they tried to do was charge extortionate license fees for DDR, such that their more expensive yet lower performing memory technology would be end up being the cheaper choice.

No other manufacturer has any incentive to move from EDO DRAM to synchronous DRAM, and maybe DDR takes 10 years longer to reach the consumer. This is obviously all hypothetical, of course, but the point is, Rambus made the industry change sooner, rather than later.

Please! The industry was already switching to SDRAM, and already agreeing on the DDR standard, while RAMBUS was still going around with nothing more than a powerpoint slide about how awesome their memory would be if someone actually manufactured it! All the memory manufacturers have a strong incentive to move to faster memory technologies as fast as they are economically feasible, which is how we got EDO DRAM in the first place. Then for the eight years after DDR that RDRAM was of no import, we still got DDR2 and DDR3. Trust me, just like CPU vendors have every incentive to improve performance as fast as they can, memory makers do as well though they also have a strong drive towards increasing density.

This is obviously all hypothetical, of course, but the point is, Rambus made the industry change sooner, rather than later.

"Hypothetical" as in "might have been what happened, if you don't know otherwise".

It's called competition, and Rambus was a perfect example of it in action.

Rambus is a horrible example of "competition". An underperforming and overpriced memory technology that the only way they could try to get the market to move in their direction was by IP extortion is hardly competition at its best. Intel went with rdram because they liked its proprietary nature and it fit their marketing-over-performance architecture. That decision cost them severely and handed AMD a huge market advantage for several years.

Then a bunch of greedy corporations ruined it, admitted to doing so, and yet we still have people like you on Slashdot defending them. I don't get it.

Dude, read some of my other comments in this story. I'm not defending the dram makers for their anti-competitive business practices. To repeat myself, they're a bunch of assholes, without a doubt, who responded to rambus' submarine patent ploy by colluding to lock rambus out of the industry. Rambus is guilty of their own bad behavior too, though, and this "oh they invented the memory technology you're using today" bullshit is exactly that. They didn't do shit to help the industry. They only failed to lock it into a proprietary technology.

Re:Insane

[AcidPenguin9873]

I started typing up a huge line-by-line response to this and it's pointless. Unless you can prove you were at the JEDEC meetings in the 90s (I wasn't), neither of us knows what really went on. Rambus surely did sell some crappy memory, but that wasn't the point - the point of their company was to license their tech to real memory manufacturers because it was good and it was at least a year (probably more like 3 in terms of what was needed to actually implement it) ahead of anyone else. If you're saying that there is no value in that because someone else would have thought of it later, then we should just agree to disagree.

Re:Insane

[Chris Burke]

I started typing up a huge line-by-line response to this and it's pointless. Unless you can prove you were at the JEDEC meetings in the 90s (I wasn't), neither of us knows what really went on.

Have you at least been following the case for all these years? Rhetorical question, obviously not. The issues I'm informing you of involving the JEDEC meetings all came out in the lawsuits years ago. See Infineon vs rambus. Rambus never denied that they failed to disclose that they were filing patents related to the memory technology JEDEC was considering, while they were considering it. In the trial it was ruled that rambus had acted in bad faith at JEDEC by concealing their patents, but the appeals court overturned the verdict on the basis that the JEDEC rules were not legally binding and so rambus' bad-faith actions could not constitute fraud.

That this is all apparently new info, and sounds like hearsay to you, is the reason why it's pointless for you to do a line-by-line rebuttal.

Rambus surely did sell some crappy memory, but that wasn't the point - the point of their company was to license their tech to real memory manufacturers because it was good and it was at least a year (probably more like 3 in terms of what was needed to actually implement it) ahead of anyone else.

Okay first rambus never sold memory because they never had any manufacturing, they only sold their technology to memory makers like samsung.

Second, yes they were ahead with their RDRAM technology, but so what? RDRAM was a bad choice for the industry compared to DDR, and Rambus was not any farther ahead on DDR development despite their submarine patent because they weren't developing it. They wanted the industry to switch to RDRAM, not DDR, and they are quite different technologies.

If you're saying that there is no value in that because someone else would have thought of it later, then we should just agree to disagree.

Are you even reading what I'm writing? I don't know how many times I can tell you that everyone had already thought of SDR and DDR. The thing rambus invented, RDRAM, was crap so who cares if nobody thought of it? There may be a time for serial memory technology, but that time still has yet to arrive.

Rambus did nothing for the industry. They tried their damnedest to harm it, and succeeded. This is what I'm saying. Try to understand what actually happened, and then we can agree or disagree.

Re:Insane

[AcidPenguin9873]

The thing they revealed under NDA was their RDRAM technology, NOT DDR!

What the fuck? RDRAM IS DDR! RDRAM used both edge of the clock to transfer data, which is the definition of DDR! Your whole post makes no sense because while you seem to know everything about the case, you know nothing about the actual technology!

Re:Insane

[AcidPenguin9873]

Wrong. Did you even read the wikipedia page you linked to? "DDR ... is a class of memory integrated circuits used in computers." JESD79 is the complete JEDEC DRAM specification that employs the DDR concept to DRAM. RDRAM employed it too, years earlier than JESD79. Rambus never claimed that JESD79 was a verbatim rip-off of RDRAM, just that it used a significant amount of tech from RDRAM.

Really? A *Billion Dollars* for Rambus? Fuuuu!

[Dr. Spork]

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.

Re:Really? A *Billion Dollars* for Rambus? Fuuuu!

[NeutronCowboy]

You do realize it is bad form to either cite yourself for support, or to cite one party in a fight as an authoritative source? You managed to do both. Congratulations.

Re:Really? A *Billion Dollars* for Rambus? Fuuuu!

[NeutronCowboy]

Troll? Really? Someone from Rambus must have gotten mod points. As far as I can tell, Rambus just got one billion dollars from litigating a situation that arose because they sat on patents that they knew were going to be infringed by the new standards being developed. And they knew about the new standards being developed because they sat on the standards board. As for their products, they sucked. No one outside of stupidly rich people, or people with very specific needs who were willing to deal with the Rambus memory drawbacks, bought their crap.

To me, that's the definition of a patent troll: you failed in the market place because you sold an inferior product, but struck gold in litigation based on deceit.

Re:Really? A *Billion Dollars* for Rambus? Fuuuu!

[tlhIngan]

Troll? Really? Someone from Rambus must have gotten mod points. As far as I can tell, Rambus just got one billion dollars from litigating a situation that arose because they sat on patents that they knew were going to be infringed by the new standards being developed. And they knew about the new standards being developed because they sat on the standards board. As for their products, they sucked. No one outside of stupidly rich people, or people with very specific needs who were willing to deal with the Rambus memory drawbacks, bought their crap.

Actually, RDRAM has been used quite extensively. It may not be used anymore in PCs, but there was 32MB of RDRAM in the Sony Playstation2, and there's 256MB of XDR-RDRAM in the PlayStation3 (along with 256MB of GDDR3...). And last I checked, the former could be had quite easily and cheaply (under $100) and the latter makes a great blu-ray player.

So their memory may suck, but they're used in two easily available products today.