Rambus sues Nvidia
Memory standards troll strikes again
PATENTS BANDIT Rambus, the troll under the bridge of computer memory engineering standards, announced Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against the graphics technology vendor Nvidia claiming patent infringement.
Rambus said its complaint alleges that Nvidia's products featuring SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR and GDDR3 SDRAM memory controllers infringe 17 Rambus patents. It claimed that the Nvidia products implicated include chipsets, graphics processors, media communication processors and others in at least six product lines.
The Los Altos, California based technology licencing company said it is 'seeking injunctive relief barring the infringement, contributory infringement, and inducement to infringe the Rambus patents, as well as monetary damages'.
"For more than six years, we have diligently attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with NVIDIA, but our good faith efforts have been to no avail," Tom Lavelle, Rambus SVP and general counsel, said in a statement. " Nevertheless, we hope to continue discussions with NVIDIA to reach a negotiated settlement."
Nvidia reportedly has not commented on the Rambus complaint yet.
With this lawsuit, Rambus appears to be staking a claim against Nvidia while the graphics company still has some assets. Nvidia recently announced that it expects to take a $150 to $200 million charge for reportedly defective graphics chips that it supplied in significant quantities to multiple laptop PC manufacturers.
But we suspect that's going to cost more. µ
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Comments
Well
Rambus got lucky enough to generate a basic patent. I'd be expecting more companies that build chips which interface with memory to be sued soon. I wouldn't disagree with what they are doing had they disclosed the patent pending during the standards creation process.Charlie?
After this news, I am waiting for Charlie to continue his rant about how bad Nvidia is, and how much he hates Nvidia, etc. I am surprised he hasn't written anything yet, I thought he had an Nvidia detector!Unfair to Rambus
Egan,You have it wrong.
Rambus is the farthest thing from a troll, having invented the technologies now used in all DRAMs.
Rambus' founders conceived of the inventions in 1988, met under non-disclosure with DRAM, controller, and system companies in 1989 / 1990, and published 100+ pg detailed implementation guides in 1990. They did not join the memory standards body JEDEC until Dec 1991.
A jury in the US this year heard 6 weeks all these facts, including testimony from Rambus founders Farmwald and Horowitz, and from 1990's JEDEC President Rhoden, and took just 3 hours to reach the verdict that Rambus did nothing wrong.
Some more interesting facts that came out were that JEDEC leadership in the mid-1990's made the comment that 'we are so far behind we need to take technology from Rambus and make it our own', and the decisions in DDR2 and DDR3 standard setting since 2001 to continue including (stealing) Rambus technology - long after litigation underway.
Finally, the Nvidia suit includes patents issued in 2007, demonstrating the continuing innovation of the company - certainly not the definition of a troll.
But I invite you to do your own research - that means reading the original docs, not talking to DRAM execs - and republish afterward.
BTW, Nvidia is a US company, about 7 miles from Rambus.
Good health to you.
Here we go again....
WHY is Rambus still in business? We all know that they usurped the DRAM memory standard before JDEC published it. Can't someone put this company out of business?? NVidia is already going to have to fall on it's sword in order to deal with the design flaw debacle of it's laptop GPU problem defective unit problem. That definitely decides my next graphics card purchase. It won't be anything from NVidia.Patent problems
Can anyone honestly say patents are doing good things in the tech industry?There seems to be two major benefactors of patents (in general, not just software patents): pantent trolls and large corporations who use them to squeeze small competitors or hinder any from being formed in the first place.
Why are there only two actual players on the x86 market?
About Time
Nvidia has been stealing (allegedly - LOL) Rambus IP for years and years. Congratulations to Rambus and its shareholders for demanding that IP Stealing Trolls pay.Hit 'em while they're down
I think it's just a case of Rambus jumping in and laying a few kicks on NV when they're on the ground. A long, expensive lawsuit is the last thing NV needs right now, so I'll bet Rambus is hoping for a quick payoff to get them to go away.your rmbs article
so should we believe 3 juries and a well respected federal judge in San Jose or you? the judge and juries have no vested interest. if you say you do not either, I will say with confidence you are not being truthfulGo the way of SCO
This little company Rambus needs to go the way of SCO and get torpedoed by the larger fish. It's an obnoxious menace which will only serve to increase prices.Rambus sues Nvidia
It is obvious your reporter doesn't do his home work before reporting. How in the world could so many comments be so out of order, disregarding all of the legal decisions to date. Seems a payoff was part of the hit piece.Good Faith
Has Rambus ever done anything in good faith? It really seems like they set out doing everything in bad faith with the ultimate intention of suing everyone.