Free Newsletters
Technology & Business Daily

InfoWorld
Log-in | Register

Rambus wins memory patent trial

An appeals court has ruled that Rambus did not engage in anticompetitive behavior or violate antitrust laws related to on-chip memory technology


Memory company Rambus won a patent case against rival memory makers on Wednesday when a court ruled that the company did not engage in anticompetitive behavior or violate antitrust laws related to on-chip memory technology.

The jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose ruled that Rambus did not violate procedures established by memory standards-setting organization Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC), as alleged by memory makers Micron Technology, Nanya Technology, and Hynix Semiconductor.

The memory makers alleged that Rambus illegally deceived members of JEDEC and monopolized markets for computer memory technologies by failing to disclose its DRAM patents while working together with JEDEC to create royalty-free or low-royalty DRAM standards.

"This ruling should put to rest a series of ongoing allegations Rambus has endured for many years," said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus, in a statement. The Rambus patent controversy has been subject to many lawsuits from rival memory makers, with cases against Hynix, Nanya, Micron and Samsung pending in U.S. courts.

Micron plans to appeal the jury decision because it is inconsistent with previous decisions by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission, the company said in the statement.

In 2006, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission found that Rambus illegally monopolized markets by failing to disclose its DRAM patents with JEDEC. Rambus appealed the decision.

The European Commission in 2007 issued a preliminary Statement of Objections that Rambus violated EU competition law by not disclosing that it owned relevant patents during the development of the DRAM standard.


Talkback:

commentPost a Comment

 

MOST COMMENTS

 
 





BRINGING PERFORMANCE VALIDATION "INTO THE LIFECYCLE"
Today's enterprise apps are complex and ever-changing, which makes delivering high performance difficult. By virtualizing the behavior of application services and data in a VSE, teams can answer this challenge with validation best practices and test tools to ensure solid performance throughout the lifecycle. Register now to attend this webcast! Sponsor: ITKO

»  Click here to view this Webcast
  Storage is big, and getting bigger
The only certainty is that your requirement for storage will never be satisfied. While you clean out space and authorize POs, you might consider another alternative: outsourcing. The best way to deal with storage might be to let someone else deal with it. Sponsored by SGI

»  Click here to download now

- Special Advertising Partners -
WHITE PAPERS
 

» Technology White Papers Library

Technology White Papers by Topic

Technology White Papers E-mail Alert

Find out when the latest white paper is available:
 
 
INFOWORLD MARKETPLACE
 
» BUY A LINK NOW
 
 

Video

 
 
 

Podcasts

 
 
 

 

Columnists

 
 
 

Resource Center


Ads by techwords beta  [See your link here]
 




Sponsored Technology Links

 
 
 HOME  NEWS  BLOGS  PODCASTS  VIDEOS  TECHNOLOGIES  TEST CENTER  EVENTS  CAREERS  IT EXEC-CONNECT   About | Advertise | Awards | RSS | Contact Us 

Copyright © 2008, Reprints, Permissions, Licensing, IDG Network, Privacy Policy, Terms of Service.
All Rights reserved. InfoWorld is a leading publisher of technology information and product reviews on topics including viruses,
phishing, worms, firewalls, security, servers, storage, networking, wireless, databases, and web services.

CIO :: ComputerWorld :: CSO :: Demo :: GamePro :: Games.net :: IDG Connect :: IDG World Expo
Industry Standard :: IT World :: JavaWorld :: LinuxWorld :: MacUser :: Macworld :: Network World :: PC World :: Playlist