Rambus Wins Brutal Patent Fight Against Nvidia
Patent fights are a Rambus specialty.
Earlier this year, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that Nvidia violated three of five patents held by Rambus which could lead to a possible U.S. ban on the import of some Nvidia products.
At that time, Nvidia was waiting for a decision from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office later this year on whether or not Rambus has full claim to some of the patents involved in the current dispute with Nvidia.
Just yesterday the U.S. ITC in Washington ruled that Nvidia chips did infringe on three Rambus patents and issued an order to ban the import of such chips. Through an agreement with the European Union, however, Nvidia can still sell the chips at a pre-agreed upon rate. By paying the rate in accordance to the European Commission, Nvidia sidesteps the ITC order that blocks the company from selling its product.
Nvidia said in a statement: "This mixed ruling, which rules in favor of Rambus on three patents and in favor of NVIDIA on two, affirms the administrative law judge's previous decision. There will be no impact on our customers, or our business, as a result of this ruling. We intend to take advantage of the mandatory European Commission License that is available. This will allow us and our partners to continue our business under the terms of that license and prevent the enforcement of any exclusion order. In the meantime, we intend to appeal the case to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and continue to press our arguments on these patents before the USPTO."
The ban order by the ITC is also subject to review by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Rambus was pleased with the decision. "The ITC's decision is another demonstration of the value of our continued commitment to innovation," said Thomas Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus.
According to Bloomberg, Rambus got about 96 percent of its $113 million in revenue last year from patent licensing royalties.
The ITC case also named Nvidia partner OEMs, including HP for its computers and Asus for its motherboards. The case ordered the parties to post a bond of 2.65 percent of the value of the products that companies wish to import.
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The other 4%? PS3's.
Every old tech geek knows that Rambus was proprietary memory that costs twice as much as equivalent memory, and it was abolished from ALL PC's by 2003.
Who the hell is Rambus now?
A patent troll.
got to love the patent trolls
/sarcasm
Seriously, Rambus? I didn't even know the company still existed. Bunch of scavengers.
96% revenue from patent licensing royalties? Definitely a patent warehouse and not much of anything else. They earn a spot on my list of most disliked companies, along with Monster Cable, Bose, Comcast, and Apple.
"According to Bloomberg, Rambus got about 96 percent of its $113 million in revenue last year from patent licensing royalties."
Wow...a company that survives on suing others... Words fail me.
96% revenue from patent licensing royalties? Definitely a patent warehouse and not much of anything else. They earn a spot on my list of most disliked companies, along with Monster Cable, Bose, Comcast, and Apple.
if you're adding companies that have failed/ripped off consumers or have trolled you can add just about every other tech company on there. they've all done it at some point.
Explain to me how blocking the sale of microchips helps innovation. It isn't like nVidia is stealing revenue from Rambus but rather Rambus stockpiling patents to cash in. What a tool.
if you're adding companies that have failed/ripped off consumers or have trolled you can add just about every other tech company on there. they've all done it at some point.
yes but rambus strategie is to file patents then sue with no intention to ever release a product
milk 'em good.
"Patent fights are a Rambus specialty." I am sure they have a patent for that too.
Rambus does release memory technologies, like XDR. Don't forget, RDRAM killed DDR for the Pentium 4 when it was out. They have, and do still make products that can be useful.
But, if I were the CEO of Rambus, I'd branch out and not only offer memory technologies, but legal services. They've got enough experience at it, and a pretty good track record.
Putting chumps like NVIDIA in there with Rambus is like putting a goldfish in with a piranha. NVIDIA is good with the bluster, but they are completely overmatched going up against Rambus legally. Hell, outside of Microsoft and maybe Intel, everyone is.
When I grow up, I want to be a RAMBUS...
Remember, kids, Rambus is the same company that sued all the memory manufacturers for infringing on their patents.
Nevermind the fact that Rambus proposed all those patents be worked into the standard while they were on the JDEC committee, and that they hid the fact that they held those patents at the time.
Pretty shady, imo. I can't believe they weren't fined out of existence for illegal practices...
Rambus should change their name to Ram-u: Hard w/Sandpaper
Rambus was funded by Intel for the RDRAM R&D...
Rambus: We Sue People!
AKA making profits off of other companies' success instead of making your own successful product
The wikipedia page for Rambus is hilarious.
that made me chuckle.. Rambus haven't made any commitment to innovation, let alone a continued one. They were incredibly greedy and tried to milk a type of ram that was slightly ahead of its competitors, and now they have to rely on patent trolling for cash, pathetic.
This should be the right quote "The ITC's decision is another demonstration of the value of our continued commitment to STOP innovation".
RAMBUS: We Work Hard On Law Suits To Better The Future......NOT!!!!
The other 4%? PS3's.
According to the report on Engadget: "NVIDIA will now have to sign up for a license to Rambus' precious IP portfolio, which might be a tad bit costly given that GeForce, Quadro, nForce, Tesla and Tegra chips are named as being in violation -- aside from Ion, that's pretty much NVIDIA's whole hardware business."
I guess that 4% probably is belong to the profit from Ion.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/27 [...] ct-neat-w/
2/3 of their wikipedia page is lawsuits.
I really hate people who do nothing but sue others. Despite my dislike of nividia
Rambus can't make money otherwise, so they resort to patent troll. Well played, Rambus. You've won a lot of support from all tech enthusiasts.
/sarcasm
"Rambus: Your licence to speed"?
Thought that was Rambus: their licence to our money!...lol
burn in hell rambus
It is always sad to read these message boards. So much ignorance and so much naive rage. Professors Farmwald and Horowitz INVENTED the technologies that were later ripped off to make DDR and DDR2. They were emobodied in Rambus RDRam, but the memory manufacturers formed an illegal price fixing cartel and artificially boosted the price of RDRam while keeping DDR low. Why do you think Samsung settled with RMBS? They were about to get their heads when the anti trust trial started last year.
Oh, by the way, that JEDEC nonsense has been PROVEN in COURT to be a lie. All the memory manufactures knew about rambuses inventions (Rambus had signed NDAs with all of them, so they were well aware of the tech). The cartel stopped RMBS from presenting their tech to JEDEC as a standard and decided to put it into DDR/DDR2 without paying the inventor.
Imagine if you had invented the *next big thing* and presented to a large company. Imagine that the company realized it was great and they wanted to avoid paying you? What is the first thing they would do? They would smear your name up and down, seed the press with articles calling you a patent troll, and worse, try to litigate you to death.
Most folks don't remember that it was not Rambus that sued first. It was a cordinated effort of Hynix and Micron who both sued in different venues in a system that let them delay as much as possible. It worked. Only now, after eleven years in court are the cases coming to trial.
Rambus is a good solid innovative American company. They have over a thousand patents. More PhDs than you can shake a stick at. They deserve to be paid for their inventions just as much as any musician deserves to be paid for their music.
Thanks for the insight roger
It is always sad to read these message boards. So much ignorance and so much naive rage. Professors Farmwald and Horowitz INVENTED the technologies that were later ripped off to make DDR and DDR2. They were emobodied in Rambus RDRam, but the memory manufacturers formed an illegal price fixing cartel and artificially boosted the price of RDRam while keeping DDR low. Why do you think Samsung settled with RMBS? They were about to get their heads when the anti trust trial started last year.
......
Rambus is a good solid innovative American company. They have over a thousand patents. More PhDs than you can shake a stick at. They deserve to be paid for their inventions just as much as any musician deserves to be paid for their music.
I don't think we would have minded so much if the worked on a BETTER product rather than resorting to lawsuits. If they spent time working on better, efficient memory handling techniques they would be the market leaders and people would be using their product. Instead they cried like a little kid that had their lollipop taken away.
Its a typical solid American company for sure. 95% lawyers, 3% finance, 1% CEOs, 1% Technical.