RAMBUS vindicated.

[Terra]

it's not about making my day better. i really don't give a damn anymore cause this all happened a while ago.
everything i see linked and shown indicates that rambus is the bad guy in all this. yes, there are bad things that JEDEC has done too, along with it's members, but the evidence seems to be in favor of JEDEC.
ontop of that, explain again how hynix paying up is a good thing for the consumer. that comment is what started all this. it turned into a performance arguement, which was nullified, and now back to legal again

You take one look at qute from Kevin Ryan in my post #150, and tell me how that "favours" JEDEC?

this is "about the consumers", right?

Actually no.
This is about intellectual property rights.
"Appeal to majority" here is a fallacy.

unless paying more for hynix's fines so that rambus can line it's pockets is a good thing?"

If tehy viloated a patent, it is a good thing.
They got convicted for doing just that.

unless rambus is really in this for the money, and they don't actually have any solid products,

So the PS3 using XDR RAM wouldn't qualify?
And why have IMB, MAD, Fujistshu and other paid licenses to RAMBUS, if they don't have any products?

why not just say "let the past be the past", and focus their energy on making new products that really blows the "inferior" JEDEC stuff out of the water?

They are doing that IHMO...XDR...
But you are saying that violating patents should just be ignored...becuase it didn't happen today...
That is just flat out wrong...
If someone stole from me, I wouldn't let slip and forget...just because it was 10 years ago.
I would want justice...wouldn't you?

Terra...

 

[lopoetve]

So let me get this straight.

Basically, in the early 90s, Rambus chose to join or atleast participate in JEDEC.

Most of the other companies signed NDAs to view Rambus' technology.

Around the same time, JEDEC was working on the SDRAM standard.

One of JEDEC's policies was that companies who held intellectual property, that desired to include it in a forth-coming standard, had to license that technology at a fair and reasonable cost.

Becaues Rambus didn't like this, and wanted to set their own costs and charge companies as they desired, they left JEDEC.

In the meantime, while JEDEC was discussing SDRAM, Rambus went ahead and began patenting technologies that JEDEC itself had been advancing for SDRAM, and th at Rambus had ultimately had no true part in.

Then, as SDRAM took off, Rambus began sueing companies for making use of its patents that it had unfaithfully patented (as these were designed to be relatively open patents, and for fair use by JEDEC members).

Many companies, including Samsung, quickly settled with Rambus by paying a certain amount of money and royalties.

Due to competing designs ultimately proving as good, if not superior, in many respects to Rambu's RDRAM, they began sueing companies again.

Of these, they turned around, voided the license, and sued what had been one of their strongest supporters and users (Samsung).

Hmm, it sounds like a lot of dirty-handedness and outright treachery b Rambus.

Pretty close.

No.
1989 RAMBUS applies for patents for their idea's
1990-92 RAMBUS show their technologies under NDA to compaines like SUN, IBM, Simens ect.
The comapiens even write back, asking about more information about certains technologies.
RAMBUS want 1.5% in license to use it's technologies PREDATING 1989.
Some how a lot of those thechnologies finds it way into DDR RAM, but RAMBUS get's nothing.
Infinon had PAIDED UP...out of court ~$80 Mill.
Hynix got slapped +$300 Mill in court.

Employes at Infnion, Mircon, Sun, IMB confirms RAMBUS version under oath in court.

Terra - I think it's time to call in the mythbusters....

not quite. They filed for a single patent in 1989, and then, after the JEDEC stuff, went back and ~added~ that into their other 'intermediate stage' patents and got them pushed through. That's where the under-handedness comes in. They cheated a loophole in the system.

 

[Terra]

Wrong, because you can't read history and this is only going to become flame bait.

Saying that, without giving argumentation/documentation is bad.
it is a best "Ignoratio elenchi "(Irrelevant conclusion)..at worst "Argumentum ad hominem"

Terra - Neither are productive...

 

[ToastMaster]

You got any link to that...the legal documents, I'm trying ot learn how your justice system works?

Terra...

"The jury found that Rambus committed actual fraud by not disclosing to JEDEC patents and patent applications related to the SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM standards."

"Rambus appeals the denial of JMOL on the SDRAM verdict, arguing it did not have patents or applications related to the SDRAM standard while at JEDEC."

"The record shows at most that Rambus wanted to obtain claims covering the SDRAM standard. Some of that evidence does not put Rambus in the best light. Rambus thought it could cover the SDRAM standard and tried to do so while a member of an open standards-setting committee. "

Rambus vs. Infineon

 

[lopoetve]

You take one look at qute from Kevin Ryan in my post #150, and tell me how that "favours" JEDEC?



Actually no.
This is about intellectual property rights.
"Appeal to majority" here is a fallacy.

Why should we care about a company that made a crappy product getting rich off of lawsuits? If they'd made the product right in the first place, they'd be still selling it!

If tehy viloated a patent, it is a good thing.
They got convicted for doing just that.

Rambus stole those designs and slipped them into their patents.

So the PS3 using XDR RAM wouldn't qualify?
And why have IMB, MAD, Fujistshu and other paid licenses to RAMBUS, if they don't have any products?

Because it's a shitty product? Because NO ONE is using it in any kind of real computing product? Because the PS3 design needed bandwidth, and sony decided to go with it instead of DDR2 to avoid directly competing with the Xbox360 and the like, and because cell can actually use some of the few benefits that XDR uses.

Reality: they liscensed the tech to use some parts of the memory controller or the bus, nothing else. You'll never see an XDR Rimm.

They are doing that IHMO...XDR...
But you are saying that violating patents should just be ignored...becuase it didn't happen today...
That is just flat out wrong...
If someone stole from me, I wouldn't let slip and forget...just because it was 10 years ago.
I would want justice...wouldn't you?

Terra...

Justice by who's definition? I see rambus having stolen designs, nothing else.

XDR blows nothing out of the water. It'll never see the light of day in a personal comptuer. ever.

If rambus wanted to compete, they'd design something that offers serious improvements over DDR2. They haven't (and we've shown that)

 

[Terra]

Pretty close.



not quite. They filed for a single patent in 1989, and then, after the JEDEC stuff, went back and ~added~ that into their other 'intermediate stage' patents and got them pushed through. That's where the under-handedness comes in. They cheated a loophole in the system.

Here comes some boring legal stuff, but you are wrong:

Rambus Patent Applications

168. Rambus filed patent application serial no. 07/510 898 (the ' 898 application) in the United States Patent and Trademark Offce ("PTO") on April 18, 1990. (CX 1451 at 1-Nusbaum, Tr. 1507). The ' 898 patent application included a descriptive portion, called the specification " that was sixty-two pages long, and included fifteen original drawings. (CX 451at 3- , 140-50). The ' 898 patent application contained one-hundred fifty claims. (CX 51 at 64- 125).

169. In connection with the prosecution of its ' 898 patent application, Rambus was issued a communication by the patent examiner at the PTO containing a restriction requirement.(Nusbaum, Tr. 1511).

170. A restriction requirement reflects that the examiner has reviewed the application and determned that the application contains claims describing multiple "independent and distinct inventions. " The applicant is required to elect which of the claimed inventions it wishes to pursue in the application. (Nusbaum, Tr. 1510).

171. The restriction requirement received by Rambus was an eleven-way restriction requirement; Rambus responded by restricting its original application and filing ten divisiona patent applications on March 5, 1992, all of which claimed priority based on the filing date of the original ' 898 application, April 18, 1990. (Nusbaum, Tr. 1511- 12; First Set of Stipulations, Stip.22).

172. Over time, Rambus filed numerous additional continuation and divisional patent applications claiming priority based on the filing date ofthe original ' 898 application. (See First Set of Stipulations, Stip. 22).

173. Prior to June 1996, Rambus filed a total of seventeen continuation and divisional patent applications claiming priority based on the filing date of the original ' 898 pplication, and had been issued six United States patents on such applications. (First Set of Stipulations, Stip.22).

174. As of April 2003 , Rambus had fied sixty-three continuation and divisional patent applications claiming priority based on the filing date of the original ' 898 application, of which ten were stil pending. (First Set of Stipulations, Stip. 22).

175. As of April 2003 , at least 43 United States patents had been issued to Rambus from continuation and divisional applications claiming priority to the original ' 898 application. (FirstSet of Stipulations, Stip. 13).

176. Over time, various of the Rambus continuation and divisional patent applications claiming priority to the ' 898 application embodied changes and amendments to the claims made inthe original ' 898 application and came to describe aspects of the original invention. (See, e.Crisp, Tr. 2927-28).

177. The patents that Rambus has asserted against DRAM manufacturers have all issued from applications that are continuations or divisionals stemmng from the original '"898" application and all share a specification with that original application. (First Set of Stipulations, Stip. 22;Nusbaum, Tr. 1513- 14).

178. Pursuant to the "written description" requirement for a patent's validity, the PTO determined that the claims of these patents were supported by the specification of the original 898 application. (Nusbaum, Tr. 1611- 14).

And it seem that I made a false statemnt before.
The patent was first pllied for in 1990, not 1989, I am sorry for the mistake!!!

To many numbers in my head..and I have only skimmed the first ~100 pages of a total of 350 pages...

Terra...

 

[lopoetve]

do you know how the US patent system works?

 

[Terra]

"The jury found that Rambus committed actual fraud by not disclosing to JEDEC patents and patent applications related to the SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM standards."

"Rambus appeals the denial of JMOL on the SDRAM verdict, arguing it did not have patents or applications related to the SDRAM standard while at JEDEC."

"The record shows at most that Rambus wanted to obtain claims covering the SDRAM standard. Some of that evidence does not put Rambus in the best light. Rambus thought it could cover the SDRAM standard and tried to do so while a member of an open standards-setting committee. "

Rambus vs. Infineon

Thanks, I will enjoy reading that.
One question.
That verdict is from January 29, 2003
The one I am reading is from February 23 , 2004
How does that..what's the word in english..."influence" the first verdict?
When a latter verdict goes agaisnt a prior?

Terra - No wonder ~40% of the laywers in the world lives in the US

 

[ToastMaster]

Actually, US law does have where after a period of so many years, a person can no longer be charged with their original crime.

The exceptions are murder, rape, and a few others.

 

[Terra]

do you know how the US patent system works?

You are not telling me that your patent system is different than in the rest of the world?

Terra - That would really confuse me *L*

 

[Terra]

Actually, US law does have where after a period of so many years, a person can no longer be charged with their original crime.

The exceptions are murder, rape, and a few others.

We have that too, but since this case got into court, I don't think this applies here.

Terra...

 

[ToastMaster]

Thanks, I will enjoy reading that.
One question.
That verdict is from January 29, 2003
The one I am reading is from February 23 , 2004
How does that..what's the word in english..."influence" the first verdict?
When a latter verdict goes agaisnt a prior?

Terra - No wonder ~40% of the laywers in the world lives in the US

Well, the first two quotes deal with a verdict issued in 2001. However, that actual link is to a verdict handed down by a Court of Appeals, in 2003, overturning the previous verdict and sending it back to trial (where it may still now be again?)

Essentially, Infineon stated that Rambus had provided technologies for consideration in the SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM standards, but had not informed the JEDEC members that it held patents for these technologies.

The initial verdict, somewhat favoring Infineon, was that Rambus had withheld such information (thus committing fraud), but that since Rambus had withdrawn from JEDEC before the DDR-SDRAM standard began discussion, that Rambus could not have committed fraud. Infineon's claim against this view, was that technologies that ultimately ended up going into DDR-SDRAM, had originally been discussed during the time of discussion for SDRAM.

Thus, verdicts originaly were handed out against Rambus for the SDRAM "fraud", but not for DDR-SDRAM. The appeals court overturned the SDRAM fraud verdict, and sent it back to a lower court.

Reading through all of this, makes me think of the RIM lawsuit as a walk in a park. :/

Edit - forgot to add, the third quote is what the Appeals Court viewed the situation as being (essentially, they believe Rambus acted with questionable business practices, but nothing that was technically against the law)

 

[ToastMaster]

We have that too, but since this case got into court, I don't think this applies here.

Terra...

Yeah. Plus, even if such a situation was in effect, Rambus could have gone the Civil trial route and thus still sued Infineon and others, as Civil trial rules are not under the same requirements as federal law.

 

[ToastMaster]

This reminds me a lot of the Apple vs. Microsoft suit in the late 80s/early 90s (sometime in that period?), where Apple sued Microsoft over the similiarity of the GUI used in Windows, compared to the Mac OS.

 

[Terra]

Yeah. Plus, even if such a situation was in effect, Rambus could have gone the Civil trial route and thus still sued Infineon and others, as Civil trial rules are not under the same requirements as federal law.

Eh?
I need to hear that again.
You got 2 court systems?
With different rules?
*picks up jaw from ground*
.oO(No wonder you need all those laywers )

Terra - I AM confused now...

 

[synergyo1]

All I know is as a consumer... my wallet is going to hate Rambus

 

[Terra]

Well, the first two quotes deal with a verdict issued in 2001. However, that actual link is to a verdict handed down by a Court of Appeals, in 2003, overturning the previous verdict and sending it back to trial (where it may still now be again?)

That couldn't be the one that I am reading...that has this info:

Trial in this proceeding commenced on April 30, 2003. The 54 day administrative hearing produced a voluminous evidentiary record including 44 live witnesses, 1 770 admitted exhbits nearly 12 000 pages of trial transcript, and hundreds of pages of deposition transcripts.."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FEDERA TRADE COMMSSION
OFFICE OF ADMISTRATIVE LAW JUGDES

Docket No. 9302

February 23 , 2004
Washington, D. C.

Before:
Stephen 1. McGuire
Chief Administrative Law Judge
FEDERA TRAE COMMSSION

I mean the appeal?


Terra...

 

[ToastMaster]

Eh?
I need to hear that again.
You got 2 court systems?
With different rules?
*picks up jaw from ground*
.oO(No wonder you need all those laywers )

Terra - I AM confused now...

Yes. We have an actual "law" system, where by if you break a law (murder, rape, arson, fraud, etc. etc.), you can be punished by the government.

And then we have a civil trial system, where one person can sue another person (insurance companies engage a lot in this over responsibility of accidents, etc.). For example: in the 90s, when people were sueing tobacco companies, and ultimately one group won that huge amount, that was a civil trial system.

Essentially, here's how it somewhat works. The best two examples I can think of are the Kobe Bryant rape case, and the OJ Simpson case. With Kobe Bryant, he was being prosecuted for rape / sexual assault. Ultimately, the case fell apart around him, and the prosecutors dropped the charges. However, the girl who claimed to have been raped, took Kobe Bryant to court (Civil court), alleging he raped her / sexually assaulted her, and demainded he pay money to her as restitution. They ultimately settled out of court.

With OJ Simpson, he wasn't acquitted of the murders, but the families of the victims sued him in civil court under the relatively same charges. In civil court, he was found guilty, and was ordered to pay a large sum of money to the families. However, even though he was generally found guilty of committing the murders in civil court, that verdict in no way influences a common law court (murder, rape, etc).

Right now, while there are some common law courts regarding the patent infringement, etc. involving Rambus against other companies, there are also civil courts between Rambus and other companies going on as well (often, an individual, group or company will result to a civil trial when the common law trial didn't bring the desired verdict or restitution)

 

[ToastMaster]

That couldn't be the one that I am reading...that has this info:


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FEDERA TRADE COMMSSION
OFFICE OF ADMISTRATIVE LAW JUGDES

Docket No. 9302

February 23 , 2004
Washington, D. C.

Before:
Stephen 1. McGuire
Chief Administrative Law Judge
FEDERA TRAE COMMSSION

I mean the appeal?


Terra...

That's actually involving the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC was also sueing Rambus on a number of charges. A judge threw out the FTC's case, and now they're appealing it.

Right now, Rambus is involved in quite a number of lawsuits, both it sueing others, and others going against it.

 

[Terra]

All I know is as a consumer... my wallet is going to hate Rambus

"Argumentum ad misericordiam" (Appeal to Pity)

Terra - But neither you nor I can see the future

 

[Terra]

That's actually involving the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC was also sueing Rambus on a number of charges. A judge threw out the FTC's case, and now they're appealing it.

Right now, Rambus is involved in quite a number of lawsuits, both it sueing others, and others going against it.

It seems like the keyword in the US is "Appeal"? *L*
How the hell do you guys ever get a final verdict in the US? *L*

Terra...

 

[ToastMaster]

All I know is as a consumer... my wallet is going to hate Rambus

The reality is, by the time all of the dust has finally settled and one side or the other has emerged victorious, I'm sure a new memory format will have been released that will not in any way use any of Rambus' technologies. Then, it'll simply be Rambus looking for past royalties essentially.

 

[ToastMaster]

It seems like the keyword in the US is "Appeal"? *L*
How the hell do you guys ever get a final verdict in the US? *L*

Terra...

In situations such as patent trials, copyrights, etc., often it doesn't get settled for years, and usually some type of settlement out of court will ultimately happen.

in common law courts, if the defendent is found not-guilty, that's usually the end of it. if he/she decides to plead out, that's the end of it. if they're found guilty, and aren't willing to waste the time in trying an appeal (usually when they are in fact guilty, or the punishment isn't that hrash), then that'll be it. but, in many major cases, it drags on for years and years in appeals courts.

that's why people often joke about the US death penalty. While it is true that a few people per year are executed, the vast majority often end up living out their natural lives in prison, due to the Appeals process. Most just die for whatever reason, before it ever gets to the point of execution.

 

[lopoetve]

It seems like the keyword in the US is "Appeal"? *L*
How the hell do you guys ever get a final verdict in the US? *L*

Terra...

haha. we rarely do.

You are not telling me that your patent system is different than in the rest of the world?

Terra - That would really confuse me ;*L*

yes, actually, it is.

Eh?
I need to hear that again.
You got 2 court systems?
With different rules?
*picks up jaw from ground*
.oO(No wonder you need all those laywers )

Terra - I AM confused now...

Four, actually... Legal, Civil, Military, and small-claims. all 4 have different rules.

"Argumentum ad misericordiam" (Appeal to Pity)

Terra - But neither you nor I can see the future

Rambus was always overpriced. Always.

 

[ToastMaster]

Four, actually... Legal, Civil, Military, and small-claims. all 4 have different rules.

Thanks for correcting me. I forgot about including military and small-claims (although I always thought small-claims fell under civil?)

 

[Terra]

haha. we rarely do.



yes, actually, it is.



Four, actually... Legal, Civil, Military, and small-claims. all 4 have different rules.

To me that looks like legal confusion...

Rambus was always overpriced. Always.

Fund this little tidbit about the DDR-Cartel...
Hynix makes $185m price-fixing confession to US DoJ

If nothing else, the US DoJ (Department of Justice) is remarkably good at nailing foreign memory makers for price-fixing. Hynix Semiconductor, it emerged today, is the latest firm to plead guilty in a far-reaching DRAM scandal and has agreed to pay the DoJ a $185m fine.

The charge against Korean Hynix is the third-largest criminal antitrust fine in US history. It is, however, less than Hynix was prepared to pay. Last month, some nosey reporters discovered $341m piled away in Hynix's coffers just in case the DoJ came knocking.

German memory maker Infineon was the first company busted for participating in what has been described as a memory cartel. It pleaded guilty last September to price-fixing and paid a $160m fine. Micron was then implicated in the matter, and Samsung has a $100m DoJ fund of its own. Along the way, four Infineon executives pleaded guilty to price-fixing and were awarded jail time.

The DoJ has accused all of these memory makers of keeping the price of their products artificially high between 1999 and 2002. Executives from the companies are said to have held phone calls and meetings and to have exchanged e-mails about setting memory prices. Numerous computer makers complained about the "memory cartel" during this period, although Dell was the most openly critical vendor.

“Price fixing imperils free markets, impairs innovation, and harms American consumers,” said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. “Today’s charge and its resulting guilty plea are another significant step forward in the Department’s ongoing fight to break up and prosecute international cartels that harm American consumers. This case shows that high-tech price-fixing cartels will not be tolerated.”

In the case of Hynix, the DoJ found evidence of price-fixing that affected Dell, Compaq, HP, Apple, IBM and Gateway.

It's so rare to see a company admit to wrongdoing in this day and age that one wonders what goes on behind closed doors with the DoJ officials. They seem to have a real way with words on the memory front. ®

Sits back and awaits if those companies now get same "treament" from people on this forum as they give RAMBUS?

Terra - Because double standards are good for nothing...

 

[pxc]

Four, actually... Legal, Civil, Military, and small-claims. all 4 have different rules.

You mean criminal, federal, military and small-claims?

Sits back and awaits if those companies now get same "treament" from people on this forum as they give RAMBUS?

Talk about hypocritical. The price fixing was posted pages ago and I didn't see one person defend it (I did say it was good that Rambus got flamed back by limiting RDRAM for the patent nonsense they pulled). However, you and the other guy are intent on brushing aside every shady action Rambus did to the open standards while amending their patents when they were JEDEC members.

Do you need to hear it directly? Price fixing is bad, submarine patents are bad and bad-faith participation in open standards are bad for everyone.

 

[hardwarephreak]

Essentially, Infineon stated that Rambus had provided technologies for consideration in the SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM standards, but had not informed the JEDEC members that it held patents for these technologies.

I think this is the balancing fact right here...which can, it seems, be argued pretty well from both sides...

As a LONG time system builder...LONG time...I never really liked what Intel and Rambus were up to back then, it didn't take lawsuits to figure it out. They were trying their best to monpolize that aspect of the market. I mean come on, back then, and still true today, Intel makes the most chipsets for thier CPUs, which have the largest market share. They also have the largest market share when it comes to graphics chipsets (gotta love the integrated stuffs). Back then they OWNED the server market. What else was left besides hard drives, optical drives, and RAM. I mean if they were successful, they would have had a major stake in pretty much EVERY part of your PC. Not particularly favorable for the consumer, and I like to take pride in the fact that for me my customers are number 1, and as an IT person, I should be looking out for their best intrest, because God knows, most customers don't know shit about what they need. I was ALL about offering the AMD alternative back then, as it was almost as good in terms of performance, yet it was MUCH more attractively priced..

Back on track...I think what has made this a legal seesaw is trying to prove that Rambus tried to patent an open source standard. But if you look at the statement made by ToastMaster it is really a very tricky statement...on one side..you could argue that Rambus presented its' tech to JEDEC and offered it up all the while intending to charge license fees for its technologies the whole time. JEDEC members were aware of this and didn't want any part of it. After all why the fcuk would you pay for an OPEN standard.

On the other side of that coin you could argue that Rambus said, "hey look at this tech, isn't it great we should use this for our open RAM standard"...but then never told anyone they held patents for the tech, or that they were updating them to make them more relevant to what was being discussed at the JEDEC meetings.

Technologically speaking, what RAMBUS was and will be is a moot point...they had their advantages and what JEDEC came up with (DDR/DDR2) had its...there really is no arguing that, there are facts supporting both sides.

But Terra I think what everyone is trying to say is (and may not be doing a great job at it)....it begs the question why would you go to an OPEN STANDARDS BODY knowing that your patents would likely be adopted...JEDEC is an OPEN standards body, where they agree to make things a certain way so all of the RAM manufacturers don't come up with their own proprietary design...If Rambus merely wanted to have people adopt its' tech they could have approached each company individually...but they didn't. It wasn't a meeting of the DRAMarai...it was a JEDEC meeting. I would hate to imagine this industry without standard bodies...

The opposite to the above, hasn't been mentioned yet...everyone think about this...we (this forum), the industry, and JEDEC members were ALL aware of RAMBUS and thier business model...they never have been, and never intended to be a RAM manufacturer. So if you don't intend to make RAM from what ends up being the JEDEC standard, what the fcuk did the JEDEC members think RAMBUS was doing there...just there to help out and offer up free tech advice...right...Everyone else in those meetings, aside from RAMBUS, was planning on taking the JEDEC DDR standard and making modules to make money...WTF did they think RAMBUS was going to do, they knew they weren't going to go make DDR modules...

JEDEC members knew better, you can't tell me they are that stoopid.

Damn I have argued for both sides...probably contradicted myself a couple times too, but that is what happens when you have been drinking I think I made some valid points somewhere in there

Look our court system is a JOKE. We let child rapists go on probation. We let sex offenders off for "rehabilitation"...OJ, Michael Jackson, Robert Blake..its all about the lawyering...we have bigger problems than RAMBUS...and to be honest I am a bit ashamed at the way things are right know in the judicial system...it is ruining the US. You have special interest groups, lobbyists, and activist judges making a mockery of the way things should be. If you look at history, the same things that was happening in the later years of the Roman empire are happening right now in the US....hell, there are guys on my staff that you don't even want to get started on this...in this facility things can get really heated up if someone says the right/wrong thing...can be quite fun

 

[Hvatum]

Wah wah wah... FUD. That's what everybody cries when they're wrong. I worked for a system builder at that time, and probably put a couple hundred systems of each type. I owned an Intel rig at that point. My personal experiences with the Athlon and Intel/Rambus made me jump ship and go AMD.

FYI... Last I checked, signing an agreement to be part of a public standards committee, and then patenting such things behind said committee's back is breaking the law.

The problem here isn't Rambus.
Or AMD.
Or Intel.
Or Hynix.

It's the broken US Patent system! You can thank our legislature for allowing everyone to be screwed yet again by this endless litigation.

 

[lopoetve]

Thanks for correcting me. I forgot about including military and small-claims (although I always thought small-claims fell under civil?)

it does, but it has different rules, as some things will be allowed in small claims that won't work in a full civil court (hence why settlements are limited to 5k)

 

[lopoetve]

To me that looks like legal confusion...




Fund this little tidbit about the DDR-Cartel...

might have been fixed, but it was AFFORDABLE

 

[Terra]

might have been fixed, but it was AFFORDABLE

If your agument was to be true, no one should have afforded to buy RDRAM

In DK I gave $499.08 for 4x256 MB Samsung RDRAM PC800
I gave $672.16 for a GeForce Ti4600
7900GTX/X1900XTX is >$700 here in DK.

Terra - That was the danish "insane" priced VAT prices...

 

[pxc]

The FTC busted Rambus: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/new...RIDST_0_TECH-RAMBUS-FTC-DC.XML&archived=False

Choice quote:

The ruling puts at risk the royalties that Rambus, which has no manufacturing facilities of its own, earns from the licensing of its technology to other chipmakers.

Rambus "through a course of deceptive conduct" was able to distort industry standards for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and "engage in an anti-competitive 'hold-up' of the computer memory industry," the FTC said in a statement on its Web site.

The remedy being sought by FTC staff would bar Rambus from enforcing any existing licensing agreements, along with certain patents.

The FTC said it ordered more briefings to determine the appropriate remedy.

Rambus shares tumbled $3.76 to $13.22 in active morning trade on Nasdaq.

Gee, that's what I said above.

 

[-=Antimatter=-]

The FTC busted Rambus: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/new...RIDST_0_TECH-RAMBUS-FTC-DC.XML&archived=False

Choice quote:


Gee, that's what I said above.

holy thread resurrection batman

I for one don't mourn the loss of RAMBUS.

 

[Terra]

The FTC busted Rambus: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/new...RIDST_0_TECH-RAMBUS-FTC-DC.XML&archived=False

Choice quote:


Gee, that's what I said above.

And that has nothing to do with at the FTC is suing DDR RAM manufactors now does it?
For inflating prices of DDR RAM...so they have to do something about the RDRAM rulings...otherwise there will be conflicting verdicts.
But funny if RDRAM is the culprits, it funny that they don't get penalized:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3627

Interestingly enough, the FTC has not issued any penalties for Rambus, and doesn't even promise that any further charges will be brought against Rambus. The FTC opinion adds "Now that the Commission has found, and determined the scope of liability, the Commission believes it would exercise its broad remedial powers most responsibly after additional briefings and, if necessary, oral argument devoted specifically to remedial issues."

Terra - I smell something rotten...

 

[(cf)Eclipse]

well regardless, investors didn't like it. rambus stock dropped like a rock
http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?pg=qu&sid=41488&symb=RMBS&time=2dy&uf=0

 

[pxc]

But funny if RDRAM is the culprits, it funny that they don't get penalized:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3627

Kubicki is DailyTech's version of Fuad (i.e. absolutely clueless). Read the Reuters news link above. The penalties the FTC are considering (at another hearing) are to negate licence agreements, void patents and possibly other sanctions. Voiding IP and licenses are about the biggest penalties an IP company can get. The fallout of this ruling is barely starting with the huge stock fall.

Also see: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060802-7404.html

 

[AreEss]

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/...SNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=191601420&pgno=2

Plus the restating of 2003-2005 and part of 2006 earnings? Forget it. Rambus is boned as they should be. The FTC almost never votes unanimously, and you can bet money they're going to take away every patent, void every agreement, nullify every judgment, and take what little money they have left. They're not happy with Rambus' little "they were price fixing so we can get away with it" game, at all.

 

[ThreeDee]

did this one get posted yet?

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/08/rambus.htm

 

[MiXdNuTs]

Hahah die RAMBUS die die die!

But seriously, they suck.
If you were asked to define their business model and the way in which it was implemented, would you describe something that you feel is an honest way of getting paid?