Litigious Rambus Wins Again

After Rambus's settlement deal with Samsung earlier this week, an anonymous reader writes with this snippet: "Memory technology company Rambus rounded out the week with another legal dispute ending in its favor as it fights to defend its patent portfolio. On Friday [the] US International Trade Commission ruled that graphics chip maker Nvidia infringed upon Rambus patents, according to statements released by the two companies on Friday. Rambus has been filing lawsuits against various technology companies for the past decade, claiming they violate patents held by the memory chip designer."

Comments

A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

This one's a tough call... the have been one of the most litigious of the tech companies, but on the other hand they seem to keep winning in the courts. Doesn't the definition of a patent troll include suing people with nonsense lawsuits? They seem to have come up with some ideas so critical to memory that everyone else in the industry can't seem to make a product without tripping over the patent law. Do we praise the inventors, or hate them because we hate patents?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[jmv]

The term patent troll has nothing to do with the fact that a company wins or loses. It's used to describe a company whose sole (or main) source of income is patent litigation.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[bky1701]

When an idea is so critical to something it cannot be worked around, it is far too obvious to be deserving of a patent. As a problem gets bigger, the amount of ways to solve it grows proportionally. If memory makers can't get around them, there is no doubt in my mind they're nothing but patent trolling scum who deserve to be beaten down in court.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

there is no doubt in my mind they're nothing but patent trolling scum who deserve to be beaten down in court.

But they haven't been... and are collecting their patent fees from Samsung who likely kept an eye on this case to see whether they needed to pay. So, do you hate all patents?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[DrMrLordX]

RAMBUS, Inc. is the very definition of a patent troll. They're just smarter, and more brazen, than most. It will take years to undo the damage they did to JEDEC memory standards, and by then, who knows how else they will infect memory standards with their patents?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[haruchai]

I go with hate them - if they can't make a physical product that kicks ass, then they deserved to have their asses kicked
if all they can do is sue. Unfortunately, since the lawmakers don't seem to get it and so long as trollhavens like the
East District Court of Texas are around, lame plaintiffs will prosper.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Anonymous Coward]

When an idea is so critical to something it cannot be worked around, it is far too obvious to be deserving of a patent...

no, that idea is patentable, its the basis for why we have patents. If it could be easily worked around there would be no reason for a company to put in the time and money to get a patent, as others would just as quickly come out with a knock off that could avoid the patent.

Tm

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

I'm having trouble coming up with stories that explain why Rambus sued nVidia, just that Rambus filed a suit last summer and nVidia lost today. What are they arguing about in the first place?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[wizardforce]

but on the other hand they seem to keep winning in the courts. Doesn't the definition of a patent troll include suing people with nonsense lawsuits?

Those two concepts are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to win in the courts despite a lawsuit being garbage.

They seem to have come up with some ideas so critical to memory that everyone else in the industry can't seem to make a product without tripping over the patent law.

Patent trolls often get an overly broad patent accepted by the USPTO that covers much more than it should in same cases making it nearly impossible to have a competitive design that doesn't infringe a patent somewhere. Ideally, our patent system would do exactly what it was supposed to: encourage the development of the sciences and R&D in general but in many cases, the system is corrupt, even broken, so while a company filing a patent suit may be technically following the law, that doesn't necessarily mean that the company isn't a troll.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

I go with hate them - if they can't make a physical product that kicks ass, then they deserved to have their asses kicked

Here's the problem with that: nVidia is board-design IP shop. They don't make anything either, they just sell their designs to other companies who build the hardware, and market it under their own brands with an "nVidia powered" seal. Patent Troll 1 vs. Patent Troll 2 according to your definition.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Darkness404]

The entire point of patents is to increase innovation by A) Giving documentation to people and B) Encourage multiple ways of doing something. For example, lets say I have patented a push lawn mower (the type without gas/electricity) I would get the patent for that device, then someone else could change it to do the same task but better (make a motorized push lawn mower) and then someone could take that and make it be better (make a ride on lawn mower) and then someone could take that and make it better (zero-turn radius mower), but I wouldn't get a patent for "thing that cuts grass". Effectively, what these patents are doing is patenting "cutting grass" without specifying a device and then suing everyone.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"When an idea is so critical to something it cannot be worked around, it is far too obvious to be deserving of a patent."

So if I invent a Time Machine, and nobody else can find another way to travel through time so they use my design, then my solution was obvious and I am a patent troll for enforcing my patent?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you feel this way because there is no room in your mind when your mind is made up.

If there is any merit to their claims, aspects of Rambus's technology was co-opted into memory standards without their say so. The reason that it "can't be worked around" is not because its so fundamental as to be obvious, but rather that it was so widely adopted, the "true" crooks figured they'd have killed the upstart well before it became a problem.

I for one wish Intel didn't punk out on RAMBUS memory back when P4 came out. It was the only 1:1 FSB to memory speed pairing they had for a full year before they came out with a DDR board that was good but couldn't compare to the potential they left at the alter.

I think that idea that the memory makers colluded to inflate the price of RIMM chips by constricting the supply is part of the anti-competitive suits filed against them. (there was a ruling against some memory companies 1-2 years ago wasn't there?). Anyways, by killing the directly RAMBUS branded stuff where there was no chance of disputing patent, they could get away with ganking some of the less directly obvious types. They thought.

It would be cool if this leads to faster memory in the future, or bus technology, though I would rather see a company like rambus tackle the storage bottleneck (despite SSD drives).

PS, patent troll

Does not equal: technology engineering company who licences their creations (or sue's to protect them). These guys actually kept creating IP after the memory fiasco. In fact, alot of it is in your game consoles and HDTVs...

Does equal: bought some rights to something they may or may not even understand and are using the rights to go after people for money (trolling like fishing boats)

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, that's obviously not the metric of obviousness either.

The official definition of obviousness is roughly whether or not anyone skilled in the art would arrive at the same solution.

Of course that definition is based on a hypothetical, so it's hard to say (without a Time Machine).

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Pulzar]

Here's the problem with that: nVidia is board-design IP shop. They don't make anything either, they just sell their designs to other companies who build the hardware, and market it under their own brands with an "nVidia powered" seal. Patent Troll 1 vs. Patent Troll 2 according to your definition.

Outsourcing your manufacturing (of chips, or anything else for that matter) can't be described as "selling your designs", though. You're providing the fab with the spec on the part that you want them to manufacture, and you pay them to make it for you. Then don't buy the designs, you don't sell them. You still end up selling a real product (chip) to graphics board makers.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[timmarhy]

depends on your patent, if you were granted a patent on the idea of time travel alone then yes your a patent trolling bastard. if you came up with an entirely new method of time travel that no one has ever thought of and you license that idea out to people or build the product yourself, then thats fair.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

Yep, but nVidia also manufactures little and licenses its designs to others. Not many lawsuits, but they're a place that lives on patents too. So, in your definition, this was Patent Troll v. Patent Troll.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

You're providing the fab with the spec on the part that you want them to manufacture, and you pay them to make it for you.

You don't seem to understand nVidia's business model. They don't make much under their brand, they sell the chip design to multiple companies, who then make the chip (or hire someone to do it for them) and sell it under their brand with the right to also mention nVidia's brand. So a consumer who wants a particular card has multiple SKUs from multiple manufacturers to pick from... and nVidia gets their fee no matter which one you buy.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[introspekt.i]

I think the true Patent Troll is the company who neither innovates or manufactures (acts) on its patents. nVidia innovates with an intent to licenses, which I think most people can agree, doesn't really constitute patent troll behavior...they just want to concentrate on innovation.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one wish Intel didn't punk out on RAMBUS memory back when P4 came out.

That was the essence of the case last week.

Samsung, Hynix, and Micron got together and said "If we have to pay Rambus royalties on RDRAM, but not on SDRAM or DDR, let's make sure that SDRAM's a lot cheaper than RDRAM. Nobody'll buy RDRAM-based systems, and so what if Rambus sues us? They fucked us at the JEDEC standards were being written, but by the time the case is settled, they'll be bankrupt."

The DRAMurai gambled, and when Rambus was allowed to introduce the fact that Samsung executives had been jailed for that price-fixing, they realized they'd lost the gamble, which is why Samsung settled. Now that RMBS's army of lawyers is flush with a $900M war chest, it's in NVDA's best interest to settle.

A pox on all their houses. My only regret is that I didn't profit from it. (Fucking Samsung lawyer claimed he was "deathly ill" in late 2009, which delayed the trial to January, wiping the November call options to zero. Fucking Micron lawyer pulled the same stunt last week, which wiped out January's call options.)

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[timmarhy]

you don't seem to understand the difference between a patent and a chip design. not only that nvidia write the drivers and do the marketing. they PRODUCE something of value. rambus does not.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo if somebody solves a critical problem then by default they shouldn't be granted a patent just because that's the only solution? Our patent system IS screwed up, but it's that kind of innovation that it's supposed to protect. Whoever comes up with the solution should reap the benefits.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[MarkvW]

Everything looks obvious in retrospect. The geniuses are the ones who can see the obvious when nobody else can.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Jane Q. Public]

No, they aren't. Rambus patented and marketed faster, cheaper memory than anyone else. Some consumer PCs were even built around Rambus memory. It wasn't until after that, that competitors started making DDR2 and the like.

They didn't just patent broad ideas and then troll later. They patented actual PRODUCTS, that were actually sold on the market, and manufacturing methods for those products. That's far from "patent troll".

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

What's Rambus' patent in? Yep... design of memory chips. Your argument remains circular.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Jane Q. Public]

Once again (see my above posts), they DID invent superior products, and had them manufactured, and actually sold them for real machines. Am I the only one here who remembers PCs containing Rambus memory?

It was only then that larger competitors stole their ideas and drove them out of the market. So Rambus is actually the opposite of a "patent troll". They are the little guy who got illegally stepped on by bigger industry... in other words, victims of the same thing Microsoft has been convicted for doing, multiple times.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Evil Shabazz]

A quick perusal of Rambus' patent portfolio does indicate their most recent patent was issued in 2008, which would indicate they are still attempting to innovate in their field. On the other hand, if they have certain patents that are so broad as to actually prohibit competition from entering the marketplace then the there is a very big problem with those patents. Patents are supposed to encourage corporations to invest in research and development by providing a measure of profit protection for the company doing that innovation. Stifling competition is counter to that intent.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

Rambus is acting on their patents, they've got many licenses and are suing only those who want to use their patent-protected items without licensing. nVidia is just as protective of their designs... use one without paying and they'll sue too!

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[tomhudson]

So if I invent a Time Machine, and nobody else can find another way to travel through time so they use my design, then my solution was obvious and I am a patent troll for enforcing my patent?

Good luck with that - I'll just use your patented time machine to go back in time and patent it before you!

Some things are impossible to protect by patents.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"depends on your patent, if you were granted a patent on the idea of time travel alone then yes your a patent trolling bastard. "

Not really. In that case I'm an idiot, because I'm staying in the present time and suing people when I could be using my fucking time machine!

(for those following along but not closely don't get caught up in just this post. timmarhy has me patenting the general idea, but I already stated that others are using my working design in their working machines using my patent)

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[geminidomino]

Once again (see my above posts), they DID invent superior products, and had them manufactured, and actually sold them for real machines. Am I the only one here who remembers PCs containing Rambus memory?

They didn't invent it. They underhandedly patented ideas from the JEDEC and are seeking rent on them now.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Good luck with that - I'll just use your patented time machine to go back in time and patent it before you! "

That was a bad move. I was waiting for you because I had the first Time Machine, and now the cops are going to have to wait for someone else to invent one so they can play Timecop, because I'm not inventing it again and taking the chance that they'll put me in jail for torturing you to death!

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Anonymous Coward]

What?? My god, you must be a retard or a patent troll.

Rambus makes a patent. A patent is not a design of anything. Get ANY of the Rambus patents and build something with it? OK? Failed already?

nVidia on the other hand makes actual chip designs. Actual blueprints. Solutions to specific problems, no general handwaving. They are the actual engineers that solve real problems. Then they *sell* the actual chips..

What is next? You are going to compare Intel to Rambus and that Intel doesn't make anything either?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[LostCluster]

Patents by definition stifle competition. They're saying "I figured out how to do something this way, and because I'm first you can't copy me!" It's a monopoly on that idea granted because if everybody could duplicate it right away, nobody would make money inventing.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[A12m0v]

Main source of income?
Rambus source of income is licensing their memory technology. The Sony PS3 uses XDR RAM designed by Rambus.
Hardly qualifies as a patent troll. They have every right to protect their IP.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[mcrbids]

They seem to have come up with some ideas so critical to memory that everyone else in the industry can't seem to make a product without tripping over the patent law. Do we praise the inventors, or hate them because we hate patents?

I guess you don't know/remember the real story behind RAMBUS. These "innovations" that they patented were obtained by attending multivendor conference meetings and then filing patents on the ideas discussed before anybody else got to them. They didn't come up with them, they just filed first!

But to make matters worse, they "submarined" the patents, filing changes for years so that nobody knew about the patents until AFTER the industry had pretty much committed itself to the designs that Rambus was eventually awarded patents to.

Rambus is a horrible patent troll, in the fullest sense of the word. In terms of evil, they are right up there with Antivirus vendors and spammers.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[_Sprocket_]

How many submarine patents has nVidia sprung on the industry?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Evil Shabazz]

But they are not meant to do so to such an extent as to create a monopolistic industry where a single patent or company's portfolio of patents controls the barrier of entry. They are meant to protect a company's way of doing things better.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Evil Shabazz]

That said, you're right. I'm not sure what I was thinking. My last two sentences are contradictory.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[timmarhy]

err no it's not. my whole point is that nvidia do a hell of a lot more then just patent stuff, where all rambus does is sue people based on overly broad patents which shouldn't have been granted in the first place. if you think back far enough rambus hate started way back in the mid 90's when they sat on JEDEC, took the idea's people talked about during meetings and patented them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambus

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[thejynxed]

Only problem with that is, is that RAMBUS controls almost all of the DDR patents as well. They submarined the entire standard.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[kaizokuace]

I think patents don't stifle competition so much as they stifle innovation. If patents were issued for shorter terms or if holders do not come to market by a certain time then the patent should be lost and the information opened to promote innovation upon that technology. And again patent terms should be shorter after coming to market. Enough time to make money and not hold up innovation. Time is key. The time frame now is better suited to 100 years ago when technology took a lot of time and effort to bring to market. Now due to fast communications, production and distribution it should be expected that tech needs to come to market faster.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[x2A]

"because I'm first"

No it's not. It's "because I'm first to publish". Patents are about getting information into the public as quickly as possible, by giving a financial/market incentive to whomever does it first. Imagine if companies wanting to keep their techs to themselves and those who pay towards their r&d had to find other ways to keep others out, such as covering all their chips in a substance that would destroy it if you tried to remove it. How much of their r&d budget would have to go into developing that? As much as they spend on lawyers? Perhaps, but this way, at least we get to keep the gunk off the chips we want to put into our laptops, and instead in courtrooms where it belongs.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[x2A]

I think the problem with rambus wasn't so much the patenting and licensing of their tech, but the amount they wanted for the licensing of the tech, in manys' eyes, was holding technological progress to ransom, which is why those RDRAM based PCs never properly took off like other memory technologies. Memory's hazy tho (mine) and I never looked into it deeply, so I couldn't comment on how warrented such an impression was.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[x2A]

Not true unless you destroy the time machines before the police get you for the torture. Just because you change the future so you never invent the time machine doesn't mean the ones already in the past will suddenly disappear. Dispite the grandfather paradox, time just doesn't work like that.

You'd end up with a situation where there are just two time machines, found in a time before man kind was ready and able to produce them itself, yet perfectly able to decypher the buttons. Well *rubs hands* I can't see how that could possibly go wrong... so thanks for that, you human hater.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Znork]

nobody would make money inventing.

Sure they could. First mover advantage always lets you profit from your inventions, and as all invention is evolutionary it's just a question of matching the steps and investment with the inherent advantage.

Patents merely slow innovation down; when you're protected from the evolutionary pressure of competition there's less reason to improve.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Jane Q. Public]

That's the entire point. They might have tried to get away with patenting ideas they picked up at JEDEC, but Rambus memory was their own invention. The fact that DDR2 was later based on the Rambus patented ideas is just too damned bad.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Jane Q. Public]

No, those were other ideas. I am not saying that Rambus didn't borrow some things from JEDEC, but the fact is that the major manufacturers stole Rambus' patented ideas for DDR2. Maybe not all of their patents are valid, but the basics of Rambus memory are legitimate. They were there first.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Znork]

Patents are about getting information into the public as quickly as possible

Of course, that purpose might be much better served and without the economically damaging aspects of patents, if we just outright paid people for publishing patents. Simply require companies to register use of public 'patents' and pay the filer a useful amount if and when their 'patents' get used. Easy, no need for much litigation, all the stakeholders get an interest in a balanced system as the financing is finite, and it accommodates both 'trolls' and everyone else.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[mysidia]

In this case they're a patent troll for a different reason:

As Rambus continued its participation in JEDEC, it became apparent that they were not prepared to agree to JEDEC’s patent policy requiring owners of patents included in a standard to agree to license that technology under terms that are ‘reasonable and non-discriminatory’

...

Rambus withdrew from the organization in 1995. Memos from Rambus at that time showed they were tailoring new patent applications to cover features of SDRAM being discussed, which were public knowledge (JEDEC meetings were not considered secret) and perfectly legal for patent owners who have patented underlying innovations, but were seen as evidence of bad faith by the jury in the first Infineon v. Rambus trial. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this theory of bad faith in its decision overturning the fraud conviction Infineon achieved in the first trial

In other words, they were using their status as member of an industry organization, to hear the content of discussions and work on patenting things based on the discussions they were hearing, to ensure manufacturers' technology would infringe on patents they would get......

That's perhaps the ultimate definition of patent troll.

Figure out what innovations other people are coming up with, and patent the pre-requisites to achieve those innovations, before the other people can publish.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[x2A]

"Get ANY of the Rambus patents and build something with it? OK? Failed already?"

Err, yep! I left my design miniaturising laser and silicon fabrication plant in my other trousers.

Erm, you can't play games on an nvidia chip without a whole host of other chips 'n circuitry... does that mean you have patents on nvidia chips, or intel chips, because they are only components in a complete system, not a complete system in themselves? Either components of a complex system are patentable or they're not. If they're not, the only people who can hold the patents will be people like Dell, who put them together to form a working full system. If they are, and rambus technology is a component of the system (or a component of a component of a system, etc), then it gets one too. If you can't build something with it, then nvidia would've had nothing to worry about, as they couldn't possibly have built something that infringed on the patents. They have, so they have, ergo you can.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[x2A]

Erm... what? That is what happens... if you build something using patented tech, you have to pay the patent holder. If a patent never gets used, nobody ever has to pay 'em anything. All this legal stuff comes from companies saying "What? Patented? This? Nooo no no no, this is erm... erm... this is something else... it's a chicken" and then the nvidia guy holds up a chip and starts making chicken noises pretending all like it's a chicken, which made me even more hungry than talking about chips alone. If what you have to pay for is the use of patented tech, and companies are trying to compete in a price driven market, then it doesn't matter what route the money takes to get to the inventors. Companies are going to try and cut corners.

As for limiting the funds... what if your patented tech took $200bln to develop? Remember that high end silicon stuff is not cheap, we've all seen the pictures from IBM of them moving individual atoms to spell out their name or whatever, that's not just for fun, that's a required step of developing an the scale which next generations of chips 'n stuff are going to require. Think they should be limited to get return on those investments to the level of whoever "invented" the 200+ patents covering a dyson vacuum cleaner?

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[failedlogic]

Just mod him down and see if he lives up to his signature - I want to see how "stronger than I can imagine" he becomes. ;)

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is of course the Cheap Ass game "US Patent Number 1" where you as a player have discovered time-travel and decide to patent it... and you figure the best patent to have is the first one, so you use your time machine to travel back to get the first patent. Problem is... everyone else who ever invented time-travel is trying the same thing and attempting to kill each other off (time-travel it will transpire was possible since 1880 it turns out).

Sadly, like all Cheap Ass games (aside from "Kill Dr. Lucky"), the concept of the game is far more amusing then actually playing it (see also: the "Devil Bunny" games).

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the true Patent Troll is the company who neither innovates or manufactures (acts) on its patents. nVidia innovates with an intent to licenses, which I think most people can agree, doesn't really constitute patent troll behavior...they just want to concentrate on innovation.

Rambus innovated with an intent to license too - they licensed tech to "AMD, Elpida, Infineon, Intel, Matsushita, NECEL, Qimonda, Renesas, Sony, and Toshiba" according to Wikipedia.

IMO, the real distinction for a patent troll is the following: They have innovated & developed real technologies based on their IP and patent portfolio. "Patent trolls," are groups who 'invent' something that they predict will eventually be used in the real word, patent it quietly, and wait for a big company to infringe on it. 4) Profit.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[michaelhood]

Only problem with that is, is that RAMBUS controls almost all of the DDR patents as well. They submarined the entire standard.

That's not submarining - submarining would be if they quietly patented these technologies, waited for infringers, and attacked.

Anyone who has ever even considered manufacturing any sort of memory knows who RAMBUS is.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[x2A]

Overly broad patents often wouldn't actually stand up in court, as the courts end up doing the job that the patent office has failed to and invalidate them. Problem is, when somebody's bigger than you, they can still far too easily use their wrongly issued patent to extort money out of you, even if you know the patent would be invalidated in court, they could bankrupt you before you've even gotten that far. To me, that stinks even more than the patents do, as that problem affects even more than patents.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Trogre]

These are nonsense lawsuits.

They're suing people based on patents they should never have been granted in the first place, due to their position on the Jedi, excuse me, JEDEC Council at the time.

That they're probably operating legally has no bearing on whether or not they are patent trolls.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Not true unless you destroy the time machines before the police get you for the torture."

You were supposed to figure out that I took mine with me when I left and destroyed the other one when it arrived and I tortured him to death in it, since I stated that they would need one to find me.

I'm not sure what made you think you need to explain to me about time when I invented a Time Machine and nobody else could do so. I'm not sure what in your twisted mind made you think you were actually smarter than me.

"so thanks for that, you human hater."

Get it straight. tomhudson is the human hater. He denied the entire human race, with the sole exception of me, a Time Machine just because he wanted to violate patents and prove it could be done. He is clearly anti-social, and some might even say pathological to the point where he has Borderline Personality Disorder. Luckily for you I tortuted him to death.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Jane Q. Public]

That is, in fact, the point. At that time, Rambus was the only game in town, unless you wanted to buy SRAM for a lot more money. So they jacked up the price. Just about any company in that position would, and more power to them. You see it around you every day. Why pick on them in particular?

Yes, OEMs wanted cheaper, fast memory. And who can blame them? But none of that justifies "borrowing" Rambus' technology to do it. Which is what they did.

Funny, but this is yet another case of the little guy being stepped on by big industry. You didn't see people jumping on Microsoft's bandwagon when they did that... everybody rooted for the little guy. Why should the memory business be any different?

This is exactly the kind of thing that Microsoft pulled on Stacker, in re: on-the-fly compression of data. Stacker was the little guy, Microsoft was the elephant that stepped on them and stole their technology. And -- eventually -- Stacker won in court. But for some reason, people are not looking at this the same way. Again I admit that Rambus apparently patented some things they did not really invent, and that is not a good thing. On the other hand, people who bitch about that can hardly turn around (ethically), and say that it is okay for larger companies to do it to them.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[rrossman2]

... until I use your time machine to go back in time to one year before you "invented" your time machine, showing up at the USPTO, and promptly filing a patent on the completed design.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[rrossman2]

quite a few Dell PC's with Pentium 4's IIRC used RAMBUS

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Zero__Kelvin]

You should use your Time Machine to go back to the moment before you posted in this thread and read it in its entirety instead, since that idea has already been debunked (and you have been tortured to death)

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[rrossman2]

RAMBUS did the same as Nvidia, with RAMBUS RBRAM or whatever it was called found in Dell Pentium 4 (IIRC) PC's, etc. RAMBUS was faster memory at that type, but I haven't kept up with what they've produced since then and how to compares to the other options.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[dimeglio]

nVidia knew very well they might be infringing, might have decided to take a chance and lost. There is no story here. If RAMBUS truly innovated, as decided by the courts, then they should be protected. If the RAMBUS way is the only way then pay or innovate.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[TheRaven64]

They have every right to protect their IP.

Not when the reason that people are using their IP is that they proposed it for inclusion in a standard without disclosing that they owned patents on it.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[TheRaven64]

The problem was that they proposed patented ideas to JEDEC without disclosing that they were patented. People started implementing DDR and then got letters from Rambus demanding money. It would have been fine if they hadn't been part of JEDEC (and someone else had proposed their designs) or if they had disclosed that they owned the patents and worked out royalty rates before the standard was finalised (in which case people could have chosen whether or not to adopt it knowing exactly what it would cost), but instead they deliberately got them added to the standard, waited until people started using it, and then fired off the lawsuits.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[TheRaven64]

Rambus makes a patent. A patent is not a design of anything. Get ANY of the Rambus patents and build something with it? OK? Failed already?

Which, in fact, highlights the major failing of the current patent system. The point of patents is that they give you a time-limited monopoly on an invention in exchange for disclosing the designs. You don't have to go back very far to see when this was really the case. Take a look at some of the first software patents (in the '60s). They had pseudocode implementations of the algorithms and most were even filed with complete punch card listings, which were kept on file at the patent office and could be inspected by anyone.

Go back a bit further and you'll find engineering drawings of machines and detailed descriptions of how to build them. You can take some of these old patents and build a machine from them.

Now, patents are written by lawyers, for lawyers. Wilful infringement comes with triple damages and the only defence against it is never having looked at or for a semi-relevant patent, so engineers never read them.

If the patent system worked well, the first place anyone looked to find out how to do something would be the patent office. You'd search for your specific problem, find patents explaining how to solve it, get a license, and implement them. Instead, people look at journal papers or just try to solve the problem themselves.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[x2A]

People here hate patents and microsoft more than they care for facts... tho they're saying what rambus patented wasn't their own tech, but they raced to the patent office first... which would certainly counter your points. Me... I've no idea on this one!

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Jane Q. Public]

But again, the timeline does not agree. If Rambus, a small company with little capital, could manage (as they did) to patent Rambus memory technology, contract for its manufacture, and actually sell it on the market before larger companies who design and manufacture their own products could do the same, is... well, it strains credulity. It's pretty damned hard to believe. That alone is rather contradictory to the idea that Rambus "raced to the patent office" before other companies could do the same. And once again: Rambus dropped the accusations about several of the patents. It is logical to assume that the charges they dropped were those against patents for which they had shaky claim. Yet they still won.

In summary, circumstances simply do not support the accusations against Rambus for being nothing but a "patent troll". They may have taken out a few improper patents, but that has no effect on their legitimate patents.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[thejynxed]

Go read the histories. What you are claiming to be true didn't happen and wasn't clear until RAMBUS had already filed the patents and submitted their patented stuff to JEDEC for inclusion in the standard without making anyone else aware that the technologies were already patented or patent pending.

They then filed lawsuits several years after DDR was already on the market, and established as THE standard for desktop and server memory for the entire industry. In fact, they waited until their shitty overheating memory modules (that required termination units to take up one of your non-DDR compatible RDRAM slots) were getting beaten out in sales by DDR manufacturers before they even filed any lawsuits.

Even foisting their shite memory onto IBM, Compaq and Dell didn't work.

I remember quite vividly, informing customers at the time, who brought those machines in to be repaired, that they would be better off filing for a refund than trying to get any proper support from RAMBUS concerning their memory modules faulting due to overheating or otherwise just plain sucking ass.

Re:A patent troll with a win streak?

[Pulzar]

You don't seem to understand nVidia's business model. They don't make much under their brand, they sell the chip design to multiple companies, who then make the chip (or hire someone to do it for them) and sell it under their brand with the right to also mention nVidia's brand.

That's very much incorrect. nVidia pays TSMC to manufacture their chips, which they in turn sell to graphics board manufacturers. Nobody but nVidia (through TSMC) makes these chips, and they do not sell the license/design to anybody else to make them.

Just to clarify....

[John Hasler]

...The US Trade Commission is not a court.

Re:Just to clarify....

[Chris Burke]

Indeed. And Rambus has been losing all of their patent suits in court.

Though they have been winning all the suits involving anti-trust (both those filed against them, and those filed against the memory makers who did engage in illegal trust behavior).

Re:Just to clarify....

[LostCluster]

I'm going to have to call "NPOV violation" on that one... it's a list of their losses, while their wins have gone unmentioned.

Re:Just to clarify....

[Chris Burke]

Um... only one of those is actually Rambus winning a patent royalty case. The rest are Rambus not losing anti-trust cases against them. Which I said they won, and the WP page supports them winning. The second "victory" was Rambus being able to concede defeat and pay Samsung's legal bills despite Samsung wanting to continue litigation.

Re:Just to clarify....

[chill]

Really? They have judges, lawyers, clerks, hearings and all the trappings of a court.

Quote their home page: The Commission also adjudicates cases involving imports that allegedly infringe intellectual property rights. "Adjudicates" implies court.

Further quote: Section 337 investigations, which are conducted pursuant to 19 U.S.C. 1337 and the Administrative Procedure Act, include trial proceedings before administrative law judges and review by the Commission.

Re:Just to clarify....

[aztektum]

Did you read the link you provided? It looks like most of the instances where Rambus "lost" were overturned on appeal. The FTC has tried to go after them as well, only to be smacked down. It seems the only thing they've been losing is, well, nothing, as they either settle out of court or win on appeal.

Re:Just to clarify....

[Chris Burke]

The things they've won on appeal are anti-trust cases against them, like with the FTC, like I keep saying. The patent cases have not been getting overturned. Samsung settled with them on anti-trust charges (against samsung), not patents.

This is one of their few patent-related victories, and as already mentioned, it's not a court case.

Geek Logic

[westlake]

When an idea is so critical to something it cannot be worked around, it is far too obvious to be deserving of a patent.

That's nonsense.

If there is no work-around you have pretty much proven that the solution to the problem is not obvious and that the patent is legitimate.

Re:Geek Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with both of your assertions. I very much dislike patents, but I don't think a lack of workaround can go one way or the other on its obviousness.

Re:Geek Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about that. If a patent covers binary encoding of numbers, I think it's both obvious and hard to work around.

Re:Geek Logic

[Darkness404]

No, the entire point of patents is to encourage innovation. If you patent something so basic it can't be worked around, it is too obvious. How does blocking all innovation encourage innovation? It is an oxymoron. When you patent small advancements, small improvements, they allow for innovation. Most software and many hardware patents are akin to patenting "using a spring to trap a mouse", they have no specific outlines, no implementation and only serve as a hindrance to any innovators. Now, patenting a standard mousetrap, may be worthy of patenting, because it allows for others to trap mice differently using some of the same materials, thus encouraging innovation. When someone patents something basic, no work can be done without paying extortion... I mean, patent royalties decreasing a lot of potential innovation.

Re:Geek Logic

[Jane Q. Public]

But it wasn't something that was "so basic it can't be worked around". What they patented were ways to make fast memory, cheaper.

If the competition can't make them as fast, or as cheap, too bad. Nothing about that means the solutions were "obvious"... at least not until Rambus patented them. In fact it wan't until Rambus memory started to be included in consumer products that the other companies suddenly decided it was "obvious".

It's pretty easy to say "Why didn't I think of that?" after the fact. It is the one who gets there first that gets the patent. That IS innovation.

Re:Geek Logic

[Chris Burke]

What they patented were ways to make fast memory, cheaper.

Nothing about Rambus' technology was every about "cheaper". Their memory technology was inherently more expensive than others because it required additional serialization logic chips.

It's pretty easy to say "Why didn't I think of that?" after the fact. It is the one who gets there first that gets the patent. That IS innovation.

You mean the one who gets to the patent office first? "Why didn't I think of that?" is what Rambus said when they overheard the discussions at JEDEC, but then they realized it didn't matter that they didn't think of it first, since nobody else thought of patenting it first. Yay Rambus?

Re:Geek Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

But this thread wasn't about the validity Rambus' patents and whether or not they invented them. It was about the premise that anything that patented the only way to do something is too obvious to deserve a patent. Which is not always a valid statement.

As Jane Q Public wrote, it is sometimes so obvious only AFTER reading the patent. In most cases there is another way to accomplish the same outcome. If, on the other hand, there is truly only ONE possible path and someone works it out first, the patent system is in place to allow that person to benefit from the discovery for a fixed amount of time if they share how to do it.

Re:Geek Logic

[Chris Burke]

But this thread wasn't about the validity Rambus' patents and whether or not they invented them.

Uh, Jane Q made it about that.

It was about the premise that anything that patented the only way to do something is too obvious to deserve a patent. Which is not always a valid statement.

That's definitely not always a valid statement, I completely agree. Sometimes it is valid, sometimes it isn't.

As Jane Q Public wrote, it is sometimes so obvious only AFTER reading the patent.

Sure, in some cases having nothing to do with Rambus.

Re:Geek Logic

[slimjim8094]

What the hell kind of comment is that? Take flight. There are two ways to do it - be lighter than air, or equal your weight with thrust.

Unless we find some way to modify gravity, that's it. In that case, the "idea is so critical to [flight that] it cannot be worked around". You can easily make the case that simple physics will allow you to arrive at both solutions.

Re:Geek Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

I do... if everyone working in a space finds the same pattern to resolve their designs then its an obvious invention. There are only so many ways to optimally lay out transistors and only soo many algorithms one can follow to solve a problem. People being penalized for independantly arriving at a similiar solution after someone else just isn't fair and doesn't help anyone. If rambus sits on its ass and rakes in billions without doing anything that hurts everyone. People are spending way too much time dancing on the edges playing with patents, lawyers and market nonsense and not enough time innovating and pushing technology.

Re:Geek Logic

[x2A]

A patent can't cover binary encoding of numbers. It can cover an implentation of the binary encoding of numbers, eg, a particular way of wiring transistors up with capacitors to store the number, which probably has been subjected to many patents in the past that are now expired, and so the information is public domain, widely known, thus "obvious".

Re:Geek Logic

[the_other_chewey]

Take flight. There are two ways to do it - be lighter than air,

Airship.

or equal your weight with thrust.

Rocket.

Unless we find some way to modify gravity, that's it.

Right. Wouldn't it be awesome if it were somehow possible to use the dynamic properties of the medium
you move through to generate some sort of supporting force? That might even make it possible to create flying
machines with less thrust than their mass. Woohoo, let me patent that immediately!
Huh? What do you mean, airplanes?

Re:Geek Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy. It encourages innovation by allowing the company WHO INNOVATED the item TO PROTECT THEIR RIGHTS for the design, method, etc via a patent for 17 to 20 years. Without this protection, why in the hell would I invent something as other companies would make copies of my item, maybe at a cheaper price because they wouldn't have put in all the R&D money I did?

While 20 years may seem to long in a quickly changing world (and I agree in a lot of areas), the patents do help innovation. I sometimes think the people who quote that are just spouting it out, or if they really, truely think of how innovation would be crippled without the patents, if patents didn't keep others from using your idea and it was a giant copying-free-for-all.

Re:Geek Logic

[Chris Burke]

Do your research, what I'm saying is a matter of public record in court cases.

The only similarity between DDR2 and RDRAM is that the data lines are double pumped, and if you think they "invented" that, you're a fool.

Re:Geek Logic

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Airplanes create downward trust from the air they move through. ie they deflect the air downwards...

Re:Geek Logic

[Waccoon]

My college textbook says otherwise. Everybody knows wings get sucked upwards!

Re:Geek Logic

[Jane Q. Public]

Do your research, what I'm saying is a matter of public record in court cases.

The only similarity between DDR2 and RDRAM is that the data lines are double pumped, and if you think they "invented" that, you're a fool.

I did not say that Rambus invented DDR or DDR2. If you think I did, you're a fool. I wrote that they used technology patented by Rambus. That's not the same thing. And if you think that is "the only similarity", then why did the courts last week agree with me?

Try this article in PC World which says pretty much the opposite of what you did.

Comparisons

[Sanat]

When I think of Rambus and how they as a company act... I can not help but think of SCO.

Perhaps with a final ending not unlike that as well.
 

Re:Comparisons

[LostCluster]

SCO was a company that had nothing left but lawsuits (with a 0-win record) and money from those who felt the settlement price was less than the money they'd lose defending themselves against a threatened lawsuit.

Rambus on the other hand is proving they've got something, and has most of the chip industry as clients with the few holdouts losing and trying to claim anti-trust violations.

Re:Comparisons

[Sanat]

Rewind back about 20 years when Rambus stole many common knowledge ideas from JEDEC meetings and patented them as if they were their own... which they were not.

Back in those days the companies were trying to come up with something faster memory-wise and a lot of good ideas from many companies were talked about... and then suddenly RAMBUS owns the patents to these regardless of whom ever suggested the ideas..

I personally remember this occurring and that is why the Rambus name leave a bad taste in my mouth just like SCO.

Rambus has patents legally but not ethically.

Compare it to you and I talking about a neat idea over a couple of beers on a Friday night after work and I took all of your ideas... documented them and turned them in Monday morning to the boss as my ideas... how would you feel? That is exactly what happen with the public knowledge information from JEDEC.

Tard Logic

[Chris Burke]

In what universe is it true that there being only one known way to solve a particular problem means that one solution is not obvious?

In fact, when everyone who approaches the problem arrives at the same solution, that's usually proof that the solution is obvious.

Re:Tard Logic

[zippthorne]

What if everyone who approaches a problem doesn't arrive at a solution, and instead just uses the already known solution?

Re:Tard Logic

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

In what universe is it true that there being only one known way to solve a particular problem means that one solution is not obvious?

In any case where the success of the product is directly affected by its speed.

Re:Tard Logic

[Chris Burke]

That's different obviously.

But usually, if the solution isn't in textbooks, widely published research papers, or discussed at symposiums, but only dislosed via the patent then it isn't widely known. I mean, the patent lawyer at my company explicitly told my whole group not to do patent searches and just come up with solutions on our own, because patents are such a minefield the odds of you infringing one no matter what is very high, and knowingly doing so (which any kind of patent search, even if it didn't turn up the relevant one, could imply) is treble damages. Ergo most engineers are not working from the known-via-patent-disclosure solution, but coming up with it on their own. And if they're all coming up with the same one, then guess what? It was probably an obvious solution.

Re:Tard Logic

[Chris Burke]

What?

Re:Tard Logic

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Products that perform at a number of thingamabobs per second do more thingamabobs a second the next year. The thingamabob-rate always increases but it's not like you can spend a ridiculous sum of money and get the end-all-be-all number of thingamabobs a second. The solution of how to reach the limit of thingamabobs per second isn't obvious. If it were, there'd be no such thing as Moore's law.

Re:Tard Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

But everyone else didn't, possibly until reading the work of the patent makers. It's the Egg of Columbus, the answer becomes obvious after it is handed to you on a silver platter.

Re:Tard Logic

[Chris Burke]

You realize that the majority of that "x% more thingamabobs a year" has to do with device physics and process technology, not the logic/protocol/signal integrity technology that's people like Rambus involves themselves in?

"The ultimate thingamabobs/sec technology" isn't obvious. That doesn't mean any particular improvement in things/sec wasn't obvious. Obviously.

Re:Tard Logic

[Chris Burke]

But everyone else didn't, possibly until reading the work of the patent makers.

There are many cases of concurrent development. Most actual inventions in this area take years to develop, so if you're anywhere close to someone else in coming out with a successful implementation of an idea, chances are you had to have been working on it before the other party disclosed the idea in a patent.

Besides, most engineers are not doing patent searches on the explicit advice of their legal departments. So, "possibly", sure. Practically, not so often.

Re:Tard Logic

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I wasn't defending RAMBUS, I was answering your question. Which... you seem to agree with in a way that is intended to sound like you don't. Heh.

Re:Tard Logic

[michaelhood]

I mean, the patent lawyer at my company explicitly told my whole group not to do patent searches

What's it like working at Microsoft? Do you have the lowest Slashdot ID there? :)

Re:Guaranteed to fail

[Gilandune]

Seems to me you posted on the wrong thread :P

Re:Guaranteed to fail

[flydpnkrtn]

A car analogy! Sweet now I get it

It's called "Rent Seeking"

[Anonymous Coward]

What Rambus is doing is nothing more than Rent Seeking.

If we allow this Rent Seeking mentality to take hostage of the High Tech industry, I am afraid that it might dampen the innovative spirit that has been rewarding us all the gadgets that we are using today.

Re:Guaranteed to fail

[LostCluster]

You appear lost.

Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

Rambus is hardly a "patent troll". They are/were a legitimate technology company that innovated and was awarded patents for their inventions.

If I did that, then was driven almost out of business by others who "borrowed" my technology, I would sue their asses off too! That wouldn't make me litigious (I hate legal wrangling). That would make me righteous and deserving.

Re:Not a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, viewing Slashdot with Firefox has a few interesting bugs like this.

Re:Not a troll

[Chris Burke]

They're kinda a troll and kinda not. They were awarded patents for their inventions... and they were awarded patents for what they overheard at JEDEC and then ran off and patented (and no one else did first because the whole point was to devise a patent-royalty-free standard).

Re:Not a troll

[LostCluster]

Yep, a traditional patent troll doesn't file for the patent themselves, they buy somebody else's patent cheaply under the pretense that the original inventor is getting nothing because they can't mount the massive legal campaign... the new owners then sue the world. Big profit in the unlikely event they win, and that's how they justify the cost. One of these days, that lottery combo will be drawn.

Re:Not a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

They *were* a legitimate technology company. Building their undisclosed patents into a JEDEC standard makes them a troll. Not starting litigation until well after the standard had become widely adopted makes them a super-troll.

Re:Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

What do you want to bet those aren't the patents they are winning on?

But that is a point. They did patent a few obvious things. On the other hand, they had some innovative technology of their own blatantly stolen.

Re:Not a troll

[Chris Burke]

What do you want to bet those aren't the patents they are winning on?

Oh just about anything since anybody who was interested in the technology they actually invented paid for it. :P

But that is a point. They did patent a few obvious things. On the other hand, they had some innovative technology of their own blatantly stolen.

It's not that they were obvious. It's that they didn't invent them. Someone else did. But because of how fucked our patent system is, being the first one to file a patent is more important than being the one to invent.

Anyway, I haven't seen any cases where their actual technology was blatantly stolen. I've only seen cases where their patent rights to the technology they stole was upheld.

TFA gives no indication which this is, but since it's NVidia that suggests it's related to GDDR in which case it's the later.

Re:Not a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

When you sit on a committee of many companies discussing future standards then go out and patent what was discussed, then wait until products are manufactured before announcing the patents, then you are indeed a troll, or worse.

Re:Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

"Anyway, I haven't seen any cases where their actual technology was blatantly stolen. I've only seen cases where their patent rights to the technology they stole was upheld."

DDR2 and further refinements like DDR3 and now 4 and 5 all rely on technology that Rambus patented.

Re:Not a troll

[Khyber]

Rambus PATENTED, but not invented.

They are trolls. Here is why. They took ideas from JEDEC standards conference. They then begin to patent those ideas without disclosing that to others involved in setting standards at that conference. They then wait for the technology to mature and become widespread, and they sue everyone. It's bullshit. They invented NOTHING, they stole forming standards, patented them, sat and waited, and sued.

Rambus has innovated and invented very little since the EARLY 90s.

They do not deserve the patent or the favorable rulings, for any legal or ethical reason.

Re:Not a troll

[FreakyGreenLeaky]

I'm just poking in the dark here, but doesn't that then qualify as prior art? If the wronged parties can show the ideas were publicly discussed at the conference before the patent...?

Re:Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

They took SOME ideas from JEDEC. Please show me where the ideas behind their own Rambus memory was in the ideas that they "borrowed".

You need to understand that Rambus was in the memory design business before they were invited to participate in JEDEC. Otherwise, guess what? They wouldn't have been invited to participate in JEDEC! What, you think they just pull in anybody off the street?

Rambus memory was designed, patented, and MARKETED before DDR2 came along. I challenge you to show otherwise.

Re:Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

Further, you seem to fail to understand that Rambus memory was a manufactured and actually sold product long before DDR2. Rambus was NOT just a patent trolling company. They licensed and sold faster and cheaper memory than anyone else at the time. That kind of puts your timeline out of whack.

Re:Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

I am rather amused that somebody chose to mark my own comments "troll". Jesus, there are some asshole modders on Slashdot.

I fully expect this one to be marked "troll" too. We shall see.

Re:Not a troll

[rcoxdav]

I do not think that you are remembering things clearly. Rambus was competing with the original DDR, not DDR2. Yes, the original Rambus was slightly faster than DDR, but with horrible latency issues compared to it. Read some chipset reviews for a VIA DDR chipset on a P IV vs Rambus. Also, Rambus was originally shoved down or throats by Intel on the Pentium III (or at least they tried). Rambus was also a lot more expensive to manufacture being a totally new design, while DDR was an extension of standard SDRAM. Much like how HD-DVD was cheaper to make than Blu-Ray being an extension of an existing process.

Also, I believe that Rambus originally went after the memory makers for DDR, not just DDR2. So yes, after latency was taken care of in streaming, it was faster, but it was never cheaper.

Re:Not a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that patents are sellable.
Changing the system so that the only way to 'acquire' patents would be to purchase the whole company; and if that company were to be dissolved then so would be the patents.

Only grant patents to a company.
Do no allow patents to be transferred.
If the company no longer exists - eg, if it is 'absorbed' by another company, then the patent dissolved.

Re:Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

Excuse me, you are correct. It was DDR, not DDR2. But that isn't really the issue. The rest of the argument stands: in order to make DDR mamory, they infringed on Rambus' patents. I understand that you don't seem to like the idea, but it is still the truth.

And the fact that Rambus was "shoved down or throats" [sic], is completely irrelevant to whether their patents on faster memory were valid. That is known as a "straw man" argument.

And yes, Rambus was more expensive. That is a point I made myself. But that is still irrelevant: AT THE TIME, it was the only faster memory available.

And yes, it was cheaper when originally marketed, because the only thing that beat it in speed was SRAM, which was very expensive indeed.

Basically, you bring up lots of things that happened afterward, and seem to be arguing that those things somehow invalidate a legitimate patent. Hint: NOT.

Re:Not a troll

[Khyber]

DDR2 is a different technology. Ahem. DDR2 doesn't require terminator chips. DDR2 operates on a different p/n junction. There's so much physically you probably wouldn't understand unless you were a material engineer, and I can't explain it myself ebcause I'm a few years away from the necessary degree.

But then again, I WORK IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR BUSINESS. Not RAM, specificaly, but RAMBUS lawsuits have been a pain in the ass for emerging LED technologies, and we're going to bury their asses in the ground once we get our momentum, because half of those ideas were taken directly from our field.

Rambus has a HUGE target on its back from the rest of the semiconductor industry. They won't be around for long and I'm going to be one of those pioneers that brings them down.

Re:Not a troll

[Khyber]

SHOW ME THE PATENT INFRINGED.

That is all. Having several in this field, I'll bet you stumble across something I can use to sue Rambus for a hefty sum.

Evidence, please.

Re:Not a troll

[Jane Q. Public]

That's ridiculous. Pay me the same rate as Rambus' lawyers get, and I will show you the patent infringed. Until then, dream on.

The facts as I know them and the timeline are still solidly behind my position. If you know as much about it as you claim, perhaps YOU can show ME why their patents were not infringed. After all, the courts decided that they were. Do you really know better?

Re:Guaranteed to fail

[fluffy99]

I didn't think I did. I think Slashdot is fucked up. If you open another topic and go back to the original thread, it seems replies might end up in the wrong thread.

What's the dispute about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither TFS nor TFA contain a description of the actual dispute, nor any patent numbers involved, so how are we going to make up our minds about the situation? (Apart from the fact that Rambus is a notorious patent troll...)

The patent wars of the 21st century

[symbolset]

The patent wars are about to get really ugly. Just about everybody is gunning for an injunction against everybody else, especially in the forefront of innovation like cellular phones, ebooks, netbooks, tablets, user interfaces, networks and wireless communications, memory technologies and so on.

It's a jungle out there, and I can think of no better example of how patents prevent progress. Nobody can make anything without getting sued to oblivion. The lawyers are making five times what the engineers are - a disparity that gets worse with every passing year. Lawyers never invented anything but arguments and flights of fancy. It's just not possible to enter business. The system is broken.

Re:The patent wars of the 21st century

[x2A]

I can see where you're coming from on the blaming lawyers front, it is very fulfilling, but truth is they are as supply on demand as everything else. Sure, their existance does ensure their continued demand, in that you must hire good lawyers (in the terms of success, not as in good vs evil) to defend against good lawyers, but it's the companies doing this to each other. The lawyers are like expensive weapons, they amplify the damage those using the weapons wish to inflict, and just as in any arms race, where spending more on bigger better weapons helps you defend against others' bigger better weapons, surviving without them when you have a lot to protect and defend lies somewhere between difficult and laughably impossible.

Lawyers don't sue people. People do. Seems silly to blame the weapon for the intent of those holding it. The mistake that you have made here (dumbass;) was in thinking that unlike missiles and bullets, lawyers are people with minds of their own and can choose not to do the things they do, but don't because they lack morals. This is simply not the case. Lawyers aren't people. They're weapons. Just like a child pulled out of an African village to be turned into a weapon and used in a local war, the soul hides away in some darkened corner somewhere and what's left appears only human to the eye, or of course, the dissector's scalpal. The difference being of course, lawyers aren't lawyers through being forced into it, and thus one must conclude the lack of any soul to begin with. Therefore, the moral onus must fall upon those who purchase them for use against other human beings.

You have been enlightened. Enjoy.

Re:The patent wars of the 21st century

[paeanblack]

The patent wars are about to get really ugly.

No they aren't. Patent law has always been ugly. This is nothing new; nothing has changed. Read some history first.

I can think of no better example of how patents prevent progress

And your off-the-cuff better alternative is....?

Lawyers never invented anything but arguments and flights of fancy

A capable, predictable legal system is the foundation of any economy. With stare decisis, every time the lawyers hash out another case, it doesn't just affect the litigants, it affects how all future companies operate. More knowledge about where the line of legality lies means companies can operate closer to it, minimizing uncertainty and risk while maximizing economic efficiency.

It's certainly fun to bash lawyers, but what they do is actually important.

Memory technology company?

[Hurricane78]

I always thought, Rambus was a law firm with a straw business in memory technology.

Rambus vs. JEDEC

[azrider]

To all of you:

Before commenting (especially if you are defending Rambus) you might want to do a search on "rambus jedec spec". The google search is:
http://www.google.com/search?q=rambus+jedec+spec&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a/

One of the results is:
http://www.abanet.org/antitrust/committees/intell_property/june21.html/ (FTC Charges Rambus With Abuse of Standard Setting Process).

In a nutshell, Rambus participated in the standards setting process for SDRAM technology without informing any of the other members that they were actively pursuing patents in the technology used to implement the standard. Once the standard was finalized, they disclosed the patents and demanded royalties.

Methinks that Rambus was in the wrong. So does the FTC.

Re:Rambus vs. JEDEC

[Shatrat]

Wish I had mod points. There are too many "RAMBUS is a legitimate innovator." posts in this thread for my liking.

Re:Rambus vs. JEDEC

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why people hate Rambus. The did innovate, they also tricked people into using there technology only later to demand money for it.

Luckily such a widely known example will make this never happen again. Try to find one technology standard that doesn't ensure all involved in the setting the standard sign their patent portfolio away for a predetermined fee before the standard is set.

Re:Rambus vs. JEDEC

[dkf]

Luckily such a widely known example will make this never happen again.

It'd be nice if that was true, but the general theory of human stupidity says otherwise. Maybe we'll get a few years without a repeat though.

Re:Rambus vs. JEDEC

[Anonymous Coward]

a link from 2002? impressive.
of course if you'd stop using lycos / altavista you'd find more recent stuff
like how the FTC has dropped the suit against Rambus:

http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9302/index.shtm

Re:Rambus vs. JEDEC

[The Darkness]

negating a bad moderation. new discussion system + mobile browser = bad idea for moderation

My name is Litigious Rambus

[Anonymous Coward]

My name is Litigious Rambus, manufacturer of the SDRAM on the Northbridge, General Counsel for the Federal Circuit, loyal servant to the true emperor, Thomas Lavelle (US). Maker of a murdered spec, keeper of the spoliated evidence. And I will have my settlement, in this life or the next.

(This is a first pass at it. Feel free to improve.)

Re:Guaranteed to fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that doesn't happen during sex.

A Tsunami for Haiti

[Anonymous Coward]

To cool them down a little...

Bad faith

[nten]

Its not so much that it wasn't a good idea, but that they negotiated in bad faith. The background is that a group of many manufacturers got together to make a memory standard that they could all use. They each chipped in ideas, and didn't patent them. Rambus steered the standard towards something that would include things they had already patented, and hoped no one would notice the patents. No one did. They then did not immediately sue, but waited until the standard was widely used by many of the original group, and others, so that paying the settlements would be preferable to the cost of switching standards. This is not simply patent trolling per the usual standard. This is an example of fraud. The company should get dissolved to pay remunerations towards those it defrauded, all patents released into public domain, and its board charged with felonies.

Re:Bad faith

[michaelhood]

The company should get dissolved to pay remunerations towards those it defrauded, all patents released into public domain, and its board charged with felonies.

lol, you must be new here. (here being any modern, western society)

Re:Bad faith

[hoboroadie]

"you must be new here. (here being any modern, western society)"
I get that a lot.

Re:Bad faith

[DarkVader]

I'm pretty sure he's talking in terms of what should happen in a society where the will of the people and not only the people with money controlled the law.

And his suggestion is exactly what would happen to a company like Rambus that tried something as in that society.

Re:Bad faith

[dimeglio]

Care to provide some references. My understanding is that RAMBUS had an exclusive design RDRAM which wasn't all that great mainly due to unfair competition from DDR producers.

"In 2004, it was revealed that SDRAM manufacturers Infineon, Hynix, Samsung, Micron, and Elpida had entered into a price-fixing scheme .[16] Infineon, Hynix, Samsung and Elpida all entered plea agreements with the US DOJ, pleading guilty to price fixing over 1999-2002.[17] They paid fines totalling over $700 million and numerous executives were sentenced to jail time.

Rambus has alleged that, as part of the conspiracy, the DRAM manufacturers acted to depress the price of DDR memory in an effort to prevent RDRAM from succeeding in the market. Those allegations are the subject of lawsuits by Rambus against the various companies."

-Wikipedia

Re:Bad faith

[TheRaven64]

Price fixing means that they were colluding to keep the price of DDR above a certain level, rather than trying to undercut each other. If anything, that should have helped RDRAM by keeping its main competitor's price high. Rambus gained some bad press at around this time because they owned patents covering parts of the DDR spec and started demanding license fees for them. This would normally have been fine, but they were the ones who had proposed those specific features for the DDR spec and had not disclosed that they owned patents on them at the time.

Are we there yet?

[westlake]

There are two ways to do it - be lighter than air, or equal your weight with thrust.
You can easily make the case that simple physics will allow you to arrive at both solutions.

But you haven't arrived at your destination - you've only made a bare suggestion of two possible ways to get there.

You can't patent the dream of flight.

You can't patent the physical laws that make it possible.

You can patent the practical flying machine - the essential components that take flight out of the realm of fantasy and science fiction.

 

Rambus licenced tech to fab Alpha processors.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of their feats was to Alpha during the time of HP's aquisition of that line of processors from Compaq. Their performance was unrivaled, and so was the cost to buy a computer based on one. This shows that Rambus is justified in pursuit of whomever killed their investment, specifically at all the damage caused through Intel rivalry.

It isn't right that their hard work is counterfeited, even if they participated in the JEDEC conventions doesn't mean they should be treated any less just because their implementation was more effective performance-wise than others that were generic.

Are people seriously defending RAMBUS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear sometimes I think a lot of Slashdotters were born yesterday, AND haven't learned about Google yet.

I can't believe we are still debating whether RAMBUS is good or evil. Defense of RAMBUS after the JEDEC scandal is incomprehensible. Are we gonna have to hear people defend SCO next? I can imagine 40 years from now, Darl McBride's grandson "Carl" is continuing the fight, and we get some people jump on here and say how good SCO is they invented Linux after all.

COME ON GUYS, RAMBUS IS SUCK

GAH! RDRAM patents fine, DDR patents not fine!

[Chris Burke]

They took SOME ideas from JEDEC. Please show me where the ideas behind their own Rambus memory was in the ideas that they "borrowed".

The ideas for the patents behind their own RDRAM (Rambus DRAM) memory was their own idea and are perfectly fine and valid. Anyone who wanted to use RDRAM technology has properly licensed it.

The patents that cover DDR are not the patents that cover RDRAM, because the technologies have virtually nothing in common! The patents covering DDR are the ones Rambus filed after listening in on JEDEC meetings and hearing the ideas of the other JEDEC members!

If Rambus hadn't filed those patents based on other people's technology, and only had the patents on their own invention, RDRAM, there would be no patent suits.

So who cares that RDRAM came before DDR? They are not based on the same technology, and even RAMBUS knows that even if you don't.