FTC Says Rambus Monopolized Memory Tech Market
from the setbacks dept
The FTC has announced that it unanimously ruled Rambus did indeed break antitrust rules by misleading an SDRAM standards organization -- capping a fight that's stretched back several years, and centered on allegations that the company fought for certain technologies to be included in the standard, only revealing it had patented them after the fact when it started demanding high licensing fees for their use. The FTC hasn't yet decided on a punishment, and Rambus says it will appeal if it feels a remedy is too harsh (which would seem to indicate an appeal is almost inevitable). It's possible the company will have to pay significant damages, and apparently one FTC lawyer has said the company should ditch its royalty demands. While the ruling should give the company's critics more ammunition, be sure to check back for the comments to this post, where the roving pack of rabid Rambus investors will undoubtedly come and insult us, allege a hidden agenda, and explain how the FTC is part of some grand conspiracy aligned against them and the company.
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life goes on
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Re: life goes on
If the remedy includes the forfeiture of the patents.
If RAMBUS cannot or will not behave with its patents, then it doesnt deserve them. Or more to the point, it deserves to lose them.
Of course, that's an opinion, and all opinions stink.
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What remedy would be appropriate?
I suppose one could say that led to higher prices but, really, how much lower would they be?
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Re: What remedy would be appropriate?
So it's alright with you if I stab you repeatedly in the leg, as long as ten years from now you'll be able to walk (still/again)?
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Re: Re: What remedy would be appropriate?
But the point was that it's the manufacturers who were harmed. Consumers, really, weren't harmed. Prices have continued to drop for some time now.
I'm not defending Rambus here, by the way. I think they're as bad as any patent troll. I just also don't see what remedy could really be made that would have any real impact at this stage. Hopefully I'm wrong. :-D
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Re: Re: Re: What remedy would be appropriate?
As a consumer I paid a higher price for the memory as the License royalty cost will be directly passed by the manufacturer to me.
Since the royalty based upon illicit patents was illegal, I have been harmed, possibly several time. Direct damage due to more expensive computers I purhased, higher cost of upgrade memory I purchased at retail. And then the higher hardware costs of the the servers for services that I get (any pay for). All in all, this would be a company that needs to be taken to the woodshed and spanked into the next timezone.
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Re: Re: Re: What remedy would be appropriate?
If the government doesn't prosecute known criminals, or criminal activity of business entities when they break the law then what incentive does other unscrupulous companies have to not break the same laws?
Believe it or not, there are at times (few and far between) reasons why the book should be thrown at people or companies. What irks me is that the book is thrown usually only at small business' and not large corporations who generally only get a slap on the wrist.
Money talks I guess.
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Re: What remedy would be appropriate?
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Re: What remedy would be appropriate?
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Huh?
This country is being held back in a 'new' stone age by our 'legal' monopolies - it's time to stop them.
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I can't say I expected anything great from Rambus, considering their history of expensive garbage products and litigiousness, but this is waaaaay worse than even my low expectations.
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Think of the Engineers
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That's like saying food comes from the grocery store, so you don't need to care about farmers. Manufacturers don't purchase memory for consumers, either. They build it, and for the right to build it (in any quantity) they had to first pay unfair liscensing fees.
I do understand where you're coming from, though. Even with a $100Million liscense fee, when spread over 100Million units, only amounts to only $1 per piece, 100% of which was passed on to individual consumers.
In this way no individual consumer was harmed that greatly, but manufacturers had to pay a lot of the money they earned to rambus, and they may have sold more if they were able to have the price just a little lower.
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Not about RDRAM
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Protecting themselves
Oh, and for those RAMBUS sympathisers... take this, and that, oh yeah, you like that?
!first (boolean not first)
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This country has gotten to a point where people are just sueing each other because they dont like them or because theyre greedy and want some more extra cash. Almost nothing is based on rights and wrongs anymore. People continue to set up unreasonable laws then later other people find loopholes around them so they come up with even more laws.
I think it would safe to say that half of the problems we have now occured because of the legal system we built. So doesnt it make sense to just start over instead of making more mistakes?
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