Rambus wins a patent verdict

JEDEC BADBOY Rambus won a surprising jury verdict Wednesday in a drawn out memory technology patents lawsuit in San Francisco US District Court.

The jury rejected allegations by the plaintiffs Hynix, Micron and Nanya that Rambus intentionally misled them during a standards setting process for new memory technologies that transpired during the 1990s.

The memory chip manufacturers claimed that Rambus deliberately concealed that it was preparing to file patents on memory interface specifications and protocols that it worked with other industry players to establish as standards.

Patenting several memory technologies that had been incorporated in industry standards unfairly positioned Rambus to extract undeserved royalties from the chip makers, the plaintiffs alleged.

"This was an important one for us," Rambus General Counsel Tom Lavelle told Reuters in a phone interview following the verdict. He said the jury held that Rambus hadn't engaged in anticompetitive behaviour in its work with the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) standards body and that the company didn't commit fraud in obtaining and seeking to enforce its patents.

Jared Bobrow, outside counsel for Micron, said of the jury's verdict, "I think they misapprehended what the standards-setting organizations are about and the absolute need for good faith." The verdict was just one phase in a number of litigations pending between Rambus and memory chip makers, Micron said.

Rambus NASDAQ shares lept up 39 per cent to $25.86 on news of the verdict.

Micron said it plans to appeal. µ

L'Inq
Reuters