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.
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rooket Question, is it correct to say that Hynix is the most budget company that exists when it comes to RAM? My Dell laptop shipped with Hynix, it almost made me laugh because I planned on sticking 2 gigs of Corsair in its place anyway. Probably cost Dell next to nothing for 1 gig of Hynix sodimm.Reply -
megamanx00 Bah, darn Rambus. They are pretty much just patent trolls, and to make matters worse they were on the committee for standardizing the original DDR standard and went behind everyone's back to patent technology for DDR so they could bleed royalties out of them latter.Reply -
Tekkamanraiden I was really hoping rambus would fail at this. I wonder who was keeping them afloat while they did this.Reply -
daft TekkamanraidenI was really hoping rambus would fail at this. I wonder who was keeping them afloat while they did this.im sure it was just minor lawsuits against small Ram manufactures that have gone the way of the dodo the last few yearsReply -
curnel_D At this rate, Rambus is never going to fail out of the market. I feel like it's just a group of old excecs refusing to cut their losses after loosing the ram war, with 'maybe' a 20 man team of researchers that try and find 'the next big thing', not to produce like any serious company, but just to lisence. Companies like this are the kind that I always hope deep down that find themselves in a corperate jet 20000 miles above the earth right before a sudden and violent jet engine failure.Reply
All they do for the market is drive prices up for the average consumer, without providing anything. Anything at all. -
Rambus is, effectively, an invention company. The focus on product development rather than mass production. The consumer benefits of their lawsuits, however, far outweigh the price hikes associated withReply
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hellwig oreillc1Rambus is, effectively, an invention company. The focus on product development rather than mass production. The consumer benefits of their lawsuits, however, far outweigh the price hikes associated withI 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!".Reply
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.