Samsung Settles With Rambus for $900 Million
Samsung to fork over $900 million to Rambus to put memory patent woes to rest.
Rambus has emerged victorious from another legal patent-laced battle. The memory company announced with Samsung that the two had reached a settlement agreement and a forward-going license.
As part of the overall agreement, Samsung will initially pay Rambus $200 million as well as invest another $200 million in Rambus stock. Over the next five years, Samsung will have to pay Rambus about $100 million per year, split into quarterly payments.
In addition, the companies also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to work on a new generation of memory technologies that will focus on graphics and mobile memory solutions and will further review a potential collaboration on server and high-speed NAND Flash memories.
"We have a tremendous opportunity to renew a partnership which has created solutions that have benefited consumers worldwide," said Harold Hughes, President and CEO of Rambus. "Bringing together Samsung’s market and technology leadership with our innovations for high-performance and high-efficiency memory architectures will make possible an exciting new generation of mobile, computing and consumer electronics products."
Rambus settled a patent license agreement with memory maker Hynix last year.

What new product?
Their business model is clearly defined as "patent troll"
What new product?
Their business model is clearly defined as "patent troll"
$900MM to the company that gave us CRIMMS.... wtf.
As it is I see you found it.
A good example (although not having anything to do with computers) is the guy who invented the intermittent wiper. He developed a small improvement in a large, complex machine. Should he have created a whole new car to implement this new technology? I'm going to say no... But it was a legitimate addition to existing IP (cars), and he deserved to be compensated for it.
Now Rambus is a bit unusual, as they do occasionally make physical products, but their main source of revenue is the research they do to create better RAM products... I think (as many others do) that they try to charge way to much for their IP, but to say they don't add anything or create anything is an ignorant statement.