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Decades-Old Rambus Litigation Against Micron For RDRAM Tech Reaches Settlement

Posted by samzenpus on from the now-shake-hands dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The decades-old Rambus litigation against Micron for RDRAM tech finally reached a settlement. RDRAM tech has already been licensed by NVidia and Broadcom and has been used in game consoles such as the Nintendo 64. The preliminary deal is to last 7 years and net $280M for Rambus and Micro to gain access to patent licenses defining the technology."

4 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Now I feel old. by Naatach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can you remember when this started?

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    There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
  2. This is horrible news by RelliK · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is absolutely disgusting. Rambus is the ultimate patent troll. For those not familiar, here is some history.

    Back in the 90's, Rambus became a member of JEDEC, an industry consortium of RAM manufacturers. JEDEC rules require members to disclose any patents that are relevant to the technology being discussed. Rambus didn't. It sat in on the meetings, listened, and modified its pending patent applications to cover DDR RAM. After the new RAM standard was adopted, Rambus surfaced its submarine patents and started suing everyone left and right.

    Add to that the fact is that Rambus itself does not manufacture anything -- it's a technology licencing house that has a few engineers and an army of lawyers -- and you get a perfect example of a patent troll.

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    If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
    1. Re:This is horrible news by RelliK · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because US patent system effectively legalizes extortion. Some manufacturers rolled over and paid "licencing", but others, like Infineon decided to fight. The jury in Infineon v. Rambus ruled in favor of Infineon, but then Rambus appealed to the federal circuit and got that decision overturned. PJ, of groklaw fame, put it thusly: "federal circuit has never seen a patent it didn't like".

      This is just a short summary, you can find more info if you like. Rambus extorted money from pretty much everyone who has so much as touched RAM.

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      If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
    2. Re:This is horrible news by Pinhedd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Add to that the fact is that Rambus itself does not manufacture anything -- it's a technology licencing house that has a few engineers and an army of lawyers -- and you get a perfect example of a patent troll.

      ARM Holdings PLC is an R&D company that doesn't manufacture anything. They generate all of their revenue through licencing IP to third parties whom in turn do the manufacturing. I do not see anyone calling them a patent troll.

      Rambus Inc. is definitely a shady corporation but simply failing to manufacture products with IP that one owns and initiating litigation against those who infringe upon it does not automatically make one a patent troll.