Lawrence Latif makes the best example of the so called "Inquirer Bastards". Very impressive. Continue good work!

Morely the IT Guy,
Lawrence Latif,
bem003us
John K.,

For now, let us see what kind of stuff possibly comes out of your mouth.

It is such a pose to even mention JEDEC. If you ever care patent disputes, you would know for years JEDEC has been cleared up as a joke to defend the stealing. Go read legal proceedings w.r.t Rambus cases and stop acting like 5 grades.

"Rambus had no issued patents at that time."

Damn, with those sort of weasel words ("no _issued_ patents") you'd fit right in at Rambus. I'm sure you know as well as I do the games Rambus pulled via the continuations/divisions process.

That's why I called them shell patents. File in the general area, then fill in the IP later. With good patent lawyers and no ethics, it doesn't even have to be your IP!

nVidia did squeeze other manufacturers for years with patents as well as fraud on benchmarks!
Now they are victim themselves, very good for Rambus! :-)

3Dfx stayed bone-headed on its decision that 32-bit color was useless while Nvidia was performing better in 32-bit color.
On top of that, 3Dfx was pissing off its retail outlet by taking all manufacturing in-house (horribly expensive) and at the same time starving the retailers of chips and boards, which obviously kept 3Dfx sales low, which in turn meant no money to ensure manufacturing.

In other words, at that time Nvidia held the high road and 3Dfx was being stupid. It took one costly mistake too many and 3Dfx drowned in its own idiocy.
A shame, really, because 3Dfx was the company that ushered in the era of beautiful graphics.
I mourn their passing, but it was their own doing.

Ironically, I see Nvidia did not learn from that, and is doing quite well pissing off its own retail line with chips that burn out and general design issues.
For the moment, Nvidia survives, but it would do well to remember that it is those who sell the chips that make Nvidia's money.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you, one might say.

This morning tom's hardware posted the confidential ITC exclusion order -

Guess Nvidia counted on weeks of confidentiality, when they declared the ITC order as toothless yesterday.
Let's see what they are gonna do about newer generations of memory, that are not covered by the EU.

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-- Cynic : 'But the way they had set up their shell patents beforehand..'

Rambus had no issued patents at that time.
Nobody at Jedec disclosed pending patent applications, even IBM vehemently opposed any such requirements, yet only Rambus was called out for nondisclosure.

"The highest courts in the country exonerated Rambus after studying every minute of these infamous Jedec meetings."

Yes and no ... what they found is that what Rambus did wasn't illegal. Rambus absolutely incorporated IP they got from those meetings into the patents which they later slapped the participants with. IP without which they would have no claim to SDRAM.

But the way they had set up their "shell" patents beforehand, the poor legal quality of the things they had to agree to in order to sit in on the meeting, and the generally broken nature of the US patent system, meant that what they did wasn't actually *legally* wrong.

Doesn't make them any less of a parasite though.

The Jedec story, as spun by the memory manufacturers simply was a big lie and pretext for systematic wholesale theft of IP.

The highest courts in the country exonerated Rambus after studying every minute of these infamous Jedec meetings.

The Cartel then colluded to do much harm to Rambus - but that's a long story and the upcoming Anti-Trust jury trial in San Francisco will bring out the truth.

In repsone to Steve Jmontim's ramblings about the merits of Rambus IP. You left out the part where Rambus participated in JEDEC meetings, listened to discussions and ideas, then went behind their back and patented those ideas (without their knowledge) and now wants to charge royalties for it. It is no wonder every memory manufacturer int he world HATEST Rambus. They're nothing but blood sucking parasites.

Oh and those who say that $0.40 royalties on every unit is not much, consider that hundreds of millions of units would be sold each year to which those royalties would be applied. Suddenly it doesn't sound like pocket change, does it?

Let's not forget that nVidia STOLE 3DFX's technology and drove them to bankruptcy. Guess karma does come back...

Typo, I meant 'ATI card', and I know people on the internet can often not figure such things out, sigh,

Nvidia the company that deliberately altered their physx drivers to not work if they detect an AYI card drives the display.
I guess karma is a bitch then eh, let's hope their CEO learns a lesson, but from what I heard about that guy it'll take more than one lifetime.

Here is the Rambus Chief Troll :

http://www-vlsi.stanford.edu/~horowitz/

take it easy

Seems like it is incorrect to charge for one's inventions these days - 0.40 per chip is too much, lol?

You guys should try to come up with some of these patents yourself.

Companies like Rambus, ARM, Tessera etc are no trolls.

Rambus patented technologies are in a majority of Nvidia's products that contribute to a majority of Nvidia's revenues. Rambus negotiated for six years with the knuckleheads at Nvidia, but they were not intelligent enough to investigate and validate Rambus' claims to its technology. Now they will pay and pay big. ATI/AMD will get a much better rate and will forego the chaos that will be created by the injunction which Nvidia so rightly deserves.

The bond will be VERY expensive during the presidential review and the EU license, which Nvidia says they will now sign, is what Rambus wanted them to sign anyway. Wait until the civil trial happens and Nvidia tries to avoid trebling on historical damages when they have a signed license. Nvidia lawyers will be doubletalking like there is no tomorrow. So much fun to look forward to.
Expect Rambus to add DDR5 as a follow-up product to the ITC decision. It will only takes months to get an injunction on all the newest Nvidia products, which are NOT covered by the EU license.

Wonder what the response will be then? Checkmate.

This isn't a case of being a "Patent Troll" where someone buys someone elses patents, Rambus is suing to get paid for inventions that they developed themselves, and want to be paid for.

Rambus is an R&D house, they spend money to hire engineers, and develop technology. The problem here is that Rambus has developed cutting edge technologies, that certain companies want for free.

So much is said about the "exorbitant" royalties that Rambus wants. Yet we are talking 40 cents per unit. That is nothing on the cost of your graphics card or mobo. AT the height of Rambus' hopes, they wanted 85 cents.

Those of you (like you Mike as well) want to ignore Rambus' wins, and focus on the jury fraud finding and the FTC case, without noting any of the relevant facts.

Of key note is that the FTC's own Chief Administrative Law Judge found fully in Rambus' favor, and stated that the ONLY evidence against Rambus was the verbal testimony of the cartel witnesses, who's very testimony was contradicted by the written evidence. The full FTC commission overturned the ALJ, ignoring 1300 findings of fact, saying that you have to believe the self interested witnesses, therefore Rambus is guilty. The Appellate court slammed the FTC for stretching the limits and credibility of that evidence and ignoring the rest.

Rambus is an American company, based in the US. The only thing the US has left as manufacturing and other jobs go overseas is our brain power and intellectual property. If the cartel wins with their continual delays and gaming of the legal system, we all lose, and nobodies patents will be worth squat.

Nvidia poor thing is crushed by the decision not to allow them to peddle stolen technology of Rambus founders.

An agreement reached by Rambus and the E.U. limit payments to 40 cents per unit. However NVIDIA may have to pay for 8 previous years of infringement but the ITC can not impose a financial settlement. That must be done in a civil trial unless NVIDIA wins both of its appeals. They have one appeal against the ruling which they can challenge in court and they have another appeal against the patents themselves.

Like many, I wish Rambus would die the horrible death it so richly deserves, but it's not likely to happen any time soon. They have friends in VERY high places, and despite being found guilty of fraud by a jury in VA in 2001 (http://www.out-law.com/page-1623) and numerous FTC Rulings against them in the past (all overturned on appeal: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Infrastructure/US-Appeals-Court-Overturns-FTC-Order-Versus-Rambus/), Rambus is not at all likely to go away like SCO did (this troll is here to stay). We will continue to pay exorbitant prices to pad Rambus' bottom line, and Rambus will continue to troll as it does thanks to our flawed legal system/paid politicians-judges.

I don't exactly like Nvidia, but I feel for them on this one. Rambus is indeed a turd in the punchbowl.

It took SCO 7 years to go away when they didn't have any money? How long is it going to take Rambus when they actually do have money?

They have no legitimate reason to exist; they have blatantly violated agreements with industry groups; they have no products. Rambus is a turd in the punchbowl.