Rambus Sends Its Patent Lawyers After The Mobile Phone Industry
from the uh-oh dept
As if the wireless industry needs any more destructive patent battles, here comes Rambus, a one-company patent-induced tornado, directly into the handset world. If you recall, Rambus has spent the better part of this millennium (and parts of the previous one) fighting various patent litigation suits that have resulted in the company getting millions of dollars -- though sometimes under questionable circumstances. Remember, this is the company that went to various standards planning meetings, took notes, quietly amended patents to cover what the eventual standards would cover, pushed for the new standards to include stuff they knew they had patents pending on (without mentioning that to other members) and then after the standards were granted coming in and demanding licensing fees from everyone. While Rambus has convinced many companies to hand over millions of dollars, last year it had one case thrown out after the company was caught destroying important relevant documents concerning the case (see update below). Sounds like a great company, right? Well, now Rambus' CEO has mentioned that just about every mobile handset maker infringes on some Rambus patents. This isn't a comment he made just for the hell of it, of course. He's putting those firms on notice, and, if they hadn't already, they're probably about to get letters demanding licensing fees. He claims that the reason everyone is infringing was they thought that Rambus would lose its other patent lawsuits. That seems like a stretch. Given Rambus' history of being trigger happy on patent litigation, you would think most firms would actually be extra careful around the technology. Perhaps a more reasonable explanation is that the firms never thought they were infringing in the first place. Update: Someone in the comments helpfully let us know that they were later exonerated from the charge of destroying documents, which we were unaware of. Others in the comments take issue with the other claims against the company as well. That's why we like having comments, because it allows people to bring up things like this and point out things that were missed or that people disagree with. Please read on for more info in the comments.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
read the history first
Legal gamesmanship aside,
Mike Farmwald and Mark Horowitz, the founders of Rambus, filed comprehensive patent claims in the early 1990s related to memory bus architectures and synchronous DRAM technology.
So I guess Rambus has "promoted the progress" after all...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: read the history first
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: read the history first
II.) Now how sinister and evil would it be if the other JEDEC members actually knew about the Rambus patent claims BEFORE the standarts were adopted? Regarding Rambus quietly taking notes in the meetings: Did you know that JEDEC actually denied Rambus to present their claims! Now why would they do that?
Your article is a good example how the widespread Anti Rambus Propaganda is recycled again & again and hence over the years is perceived at the truth.
Over all these years however some new evidence came to light painting a far more different picture suggesting that the truth is closer to II.) rather than I.)
It's understandable that repainting the commonly perceived image of Rambus as the villain is much more popular and much easier than doing time consuming research digging out the disturbing facts that speak a very different story indeed.
I therefore would like to ask you to invest considerably more time to find out about the real story around Rambus and help to make it public.
Thanks in advance for your efforts
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: read the history first
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: read the history first
Fact is, RAMBUS used some rather dirty pool to squeeze (or blackmail if you will) millions from companies who WERE promoting progress.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
unethical behavior
This is completely unethical behavior. Isn't anyone going to blow the whistle on this one?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: unethical behavior
1st, Rambus NEVER "pushed for new standards to include stuff they key they had patents pending on (without mentioning to other members)"...
While a member of the standards group, Rambus was twice denied the ability to present their technology for possible standardization...this denial was an antitrust violation...
Large companies at the standards meetings stood up and proclaimed that they would not divulge patent applications they were working on...
I'm amazed how many people fell for the smear campaign orchestrated by the Memory cartel...the same people who would meet privately outside of the standards group to decide what technology they would support while at the meetings...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: unethical behavior
Regretably your version of the story is a fiction which has persisted for long past the date when it was shown to be wrong. FUD sticks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
rambus
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rambus and Handsets
Please get your facts straight! This reckless "journalism" is strewn with lies regurgitated enough times so media hacks like yourself take it as truth. I suggest you begin reading Judge Randall Rader's decision in the CAFC appeal which stated as follows:
""In sum, the district court erred in its construction of each of the disputed terms. In light of the revised claim construction, this court vacates the grant of JMOL of noninfringement and remands for the district court to reconsider infringement." "In sum, substantial evidence does not support the jury's verdict that Rambus breached its duties under the EIA/JEDEC policy. Infineon did not show the first element of a Virginia fraud action and therefore did not prove fraud associated with the SDRAM standard. No reasonable jury could find otherwise. The district court erred in denying JMOL of no fraud on the SDRAM verdict. Because of these holdings, the new trial and injunction issues are moot."
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/NSD/RMBS/msoA7__.pdf
In addition as you are handing out slaps on the wrist for "stealing", try reading this email that was recently produced in the Rambus Hynix trial. The contents of the email are JEDEC's passing off of other consortiums work on dram as their own! THe email is as follows: "
3 One JEDEC memo – written for a task force of JEDEC’s senior counsel and
broadly distributed within JEDEC – stated:
One of our most active committees, the memory
committee, is continually getting bad press for not
delivering timely and effective standards. Further proof of
this can be seen by the formation of parallel groups like
PCMCIA, SLDRAM, and RAMBUS. The recent result of
this is that the work of these competitive groups has been
taken and adopted by JEDEC as our standards. Likewise,
we are now adapting the outside work of other national
standard groups and issuing them as our own.
"
http://investor.rambus.com/downloads/2006-02-14%20Rambus%20Brief%20in%20Support%20of%20Motion%2 0to%20Transfer.pdf
I expect a full article with the truth being told! I will not rest until media hacks such as yourself finally get off their lazy posterior's and actually look for what is the truth! I welcome your response!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This article is full of anti-Rambus lies
If you want some facts, instead of lies, read the legal decisions in this string of 6-year old court cases. Oh yes, I know, this actually takes some effort. But with the exception of the biased (or possibly corrupt) Judge Payne in Virginia, every court that has heard any aspect of the Rambus case has found that Rambus did absolutely nothing ... repeat NOTHING ... illegal. The CAFC (Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit), in overturning about a dozen of Judge Payne's rulings, found that Rambus did not steal anything from Jedec and did not behave improperly. FTC Chief ALJ (Admin. Law Judge) McGuire found that Rambus was not guilty of ANY of the charges brought against it by the Federal Trade Commission, and his 330 page ruling, citing over 1,500 individual "findings of fact", is a real eye-opener [As are, if you look into it, the ways in which Micron managed to totally usurp and take control of the FTC itself, even getting one of it's own private attorneys hired by the FTC as the FTC's "prosecutor" in the Rambus case]. And Federal District Court Judge Whyte, after an extensive trial with many witnesses, millions of pages of documents, terrabytes of data and a month of hearings and testimony, found that Rambus had NOT destroyed any relevant documents and was not guilty of "spoliation" of evidence (in contrast to Judge Payne's sham trial held on a Saturday and a Monday Federal holiday to ramrod Rambus into a settlement with Infineon, whose attorneys in the case before him just happened to be his own old law firm, which which he still has ties).
Lots of people think that they know the Rambus story. In most cases, what they "know" is a bunch of often-repeated and widely believed lies spread by an organized Cartel colluding for the explicit purpose of putting Rambus out of business because it was a threat to them by virtue of Rambus' far superior technology. And if you don't believe that, look into the Department of Justice guilty pleas for Criminal anti-trust by Infineon, Hynix and Samsung (with conspirator Micron apparently getting amnesty from the DOJ for reasons that are themselves highly questionable).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This article is full of anti-Rambus lies
gluck, rammax
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: article of anti-Rambus lies (adds Elpida)
Elpida has recently admitted guilt and been punished in one of the Department of Justice's largest anti-trust cases ever.
*********
Elpida Reaches Settlement with DOJ on Industry Wide DRAM Antitrust Investigation
TOKYO, JAPAN, January 31 (January 30 in US time), 2006 - Elpida Memory, Inc. (Elpida) announced today that it has reached an agreement with the United States Department of Justice - Antitrust Division - (DOJ) to plead guilty to certain violations of US antitrust laws in connection with certain DRAM sales during the period of April 1999 through June 2002, including certain sales made by NEC and Hitachi prior to the commencement of Elpida's sales operation. The total fine amount in the agreement is US$ 84 million.
http://www.elpida.com/en/news/2006/01-31.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: article of anti-Rambus lies (adds Elpida)
Friend from the other threads
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This article is full of anti-Rambus lies
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This article is full of anti-Rambus lies
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This article is full of anti-Rambus lies
Not doing anything ILLEGAL is not the same as not doing anything WRONG....
interesting terminology on your part, though...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Get teh facts about Rambus
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Get teh facts about Rambus
It is really refreshing to see the truth about this great innovative company used to refute these empty-headed lies that started this thread.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Your so full if SHIT
Rambus is the victum of this RAPE, not the RAPIST!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike, what was your motivation?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rambus and mobile industry.
1- Rambus WAS INVITED TO JEDEC by Mitsubishi.
2- Almost all jedec members had signed nondisclosure agreements with Rambus so they were very much aware of Rambus' technology.
3- Infineon s chairman after learning of Rambus technology said: "Someday all computers will be built this way hopefully without paying royalties to Rambus". Is there a more telling statement than that one? So please be honest with yourselve and conclude the obvious. Jedec members cherry picked Rambus technology willingly and hoping they would get around it without paying royalties.
4- If not so, whay did they prevent Rambus from presenteing at Jedec. This is a documented fact.Were they afraid that after letting them present it would be imposible to use the argument that nobody new what Rambus wanted?
5-"If you recall, Rambus has spent the better part of this millennium (and parts of the previous one) fighting various patent litigation suits that have resulted in the company getting millions of dollars -- though sometimes under questionable circumstances". Now tell me what are those questinable circumstances. That Rambus wanted to prevent these powerful companies from using their technology "hopefully without paying royalties to Rambus"? That is called stealing.
6-The CAFC confirmed that it is legal to ammend patents. Besides there is a withdrawl letter of Rambus from Jedec in 1995 advising them celarly that Rambus reserved the right to ask for royalties of infringing products.
7- You mean to tell me that from 1995 to today the honest Jedec members could not have turned into different technolgies? They haven t because Rambus' technology, morphed into DDr DDR2 DDR3 is clearly the best. They just don t want to pay for it.
8- Yes, Rambus has spent better part of this millenium litigating,NOT STEALING as many of the Jedec members. I salute them for that. I salute this small company for standing up against an already proven guilty of price fixing cartel and not allowing them to steal their property, a principle ( privet property) that is the backbone of AMERICA. I salute them for standing up against the FTC, a goverment agency that after a dramatically clear and convincing opinion of their own ALJ that exonerated Rambus without a shadow of a doubt are stalling for almost two years waiting to see if something kills Rambus first instead of giving in to the obvious: Rambus is the victim and the cartel is the perpetrator of the crime.
Allow me to tell you, the truth is very close to be universally known and then I would like to hear what you have to say.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Looks like...
Yeah. That's you guys.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Looks like...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Looks like...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]