Hynix Settles to Pay Rambus Royalties
Rambus has scored itself yet another royalty haul as Hynix has agreed to pay up.
Hynix has settled with Rambus on terms with what is being called a “compulsory license,” or in other words, pay or else. As detailed in the press release: the parties have agreed to royalty rates of 1 percent for SDR SDRAM and 4.25 percent for DDR SDRAM memory devices for net sales after January 31, 2009 and before April 18, 2010. The latter rate applies to DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, GDDR2 and GDDR3 SDRAM devices, as well as DDR SGRAM devices.
Rambus has also proposed final judgment of $349 million in damages, plus pre-judgment interest of approximately $48 million, which it has been submitted to the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California.
“While the Court still needs to resolve some outstanding issues, we are pleased to have reached agreement with Hynix on a number of terms,” said Thomas Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. “Our goal as always is to seek fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions, and this agreement will be a significant milestone in pursuit of that goal.”
Rambus is no stranger to the legal side of the industry, and while one chapter is closing, another moves into its place. The memory company is currently also tangoing with Nvidia, which is being sued for its memory controllers for SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, and GDDR3 SDRAM.
im sure it was just minor lawsuits against small Ram manufactures that have gone the way of the dodo the last few years
All they do for the market is drive prices up for the average consumer, without providing anything. Anything at all.
I'm guessing this is satire
I would agree with you IF rambus created the technology all by themselves. Instead, they join the committee to create the next RAM standard, secretly introduce patented technology, then once the standard is adopted, say "Surprise, now you all owe us royalties!".
Anyone remember RDRAM? That was Rambus' next big thing, but was too expensive and was eventually surpassed by much cheaper DDR. RDRAM died EVEN despite being adopted by Intel. If the worlds #1 chip manufacturer ties a whole line of their chips to your RAM, and it still fails, you just suck.
Nope, they are usually the first to release new stuff, they are the second biggest and much of the expensive rebadged ram is just Hynix or Samsung. Samsung is the largest, but samsung drop the quality of their products and swap out quality once a particular product has got a good review. We have never had any Hynix fail and use 3000 sticks of different brands RAM.
Most people are just sucked in by marketing and think if they pay more they will get better... often they are just getting older matched ram which has been overclocked, given a new timing table and rebadged. Basically you are paying x00% markup for the matching and label.
Cheers
Rambus is a "serious" company - surely people here are not saying that an IP company has to actually manufacture to be a "serious" company. Are you then to say that Rambus deserves no patent protection simply because it does not manufacture? Did Thomas Edison actually manufacture phonographs or light bulbs?? Come on! If Rambus' technology was not good, the MM's simply shouild not have used it. If it was good, they should have paid for it. Instead, they conspired to "kill Rambus." Go to www.rambus.org to see the damning documents and emails that prove this, and will be the subject matter of the upcoming Antitrust trial against the MM's.
Besides, it was standard practice that JEDEC members did not have to reveal their patents (but that those patents that get adopted would charge reasonable rates), but Rambus reveal all of theirs (pending patents) anyways.
Is Rambus the next Qualcomm? http://beanieville.blogspot.com/2009/06/next-qualcomm.html