Rambus Under Fire in Patent Battle With Nvidia
Rambus has been questioned over documents that it destroyed in an "ordinary business practice".
Rambus and Nvidia have been arguing over five Rambus patents that, according to the the U.S. International Trade Commission, Nvidia infringed on. Nvidia escaped an injunction by paying Rambus royalties, but it was later found that Nvidia only infringed on three patents, not five. Both companies filed appeals and are now back in court.
In a recent hearing, Rambus conceded that it destroyed documents relating to the patent case, but the process was simply business as usual. The court had a tough time believing the Rambus claim, however. Reuters quoted judge Kathleen O'Malley saying "You admit you have no idea what was destroyed! You have no record of what was destroyed!" In a following statement, O'Malley added: "Remember, you saved the ones that helped you and destroyed the ones that hurt you."
Nvidia is currently paying royalty rates of between 1 and 2 percent to Rambus, depending on the chip. At least for now, there seems to be a good chance that these rates will be lowered significantly. Rambus' credibility seems to be question already and there might be a chance for Nvidia to get back to Rambus by asking for damages.

I remember over decade ago nobody cared about them (or there overpriced memory) so they started suing everyone.
Apparently that's all they still do.
I didn't know Rambus had any credibility to question.
"Getting thrown under the Rambus" will no doubt become the new catch phrase for a company getting sued for something they thought was an open standard, with little chance of avoiding a miserable defeat.
I remember over decade ago nobody cared about them (or there overpriced memory) so they started suing everyone.
Apparently that's all they still do.
The de facto two word summary of RAMBUS.
That 1 or 2% adds up fast when it gets marked up by every middle man between Nvidia and you, and believe me, Nvidia isnt the one footing the bill.
I didn't know Rambus had any credibility to question.
"Getting thrown under the RAMBUS"
Best comment eva!!
LOLWUT? Intel is lightweight?
That said, I'm off to Wikipedia - I have no idea what Rambus is
Not defending Rambus here in any way (I still remember the early P4 days vividly - and not in a good way), but just want to point out that the PS3 contains Rambus XDR RAM and the top tier models of the new Radeon HD 7000 series will be using Rambus XDR2.