Rambus Antitrust Trial Begins

[dr_scott]

For a long time most of the public who knows anything about it has bought the propaganda (from DRAM manufacturers colluding with AMD) that Rambus went to JEDEC meetings, secretly patented what they saw there, then tried to profit by suing makers of JEDEC-standard parts. Completely false, and shown to be so in court case after court case. So the

Comments

[fuzzybearcub]

Thanks for the additional info.

[pklexton]

Interesting. I keep intending to read more about this every time you post about it but never get around to it. From the inquiries I've made of other lawyers I know about the case, I get the distinct impression Rambus is not very well respected to put it mildly - at least amongst my non-scientific sample that admittedly may have some self-interest bias, and I am aware as you point out that they've been cleared of at least some past wrongdoing. Money tends to talk even if (like reputation) it really shouldn't and there's a lot of money lined up against them.

The little bit of antitrust law I learned in law school (and not well apparently judging from the grade I got) is much "reinterpreted" after the proliferation of Reagan/Bush I/Bush II judges. (When it goes in the other direction it's called judicial activism.) Antitrust defense used to be a huge profit center of the major business law firms. Today, not so much.

[dr_scott]

Well, their image is contaminated by a period when the cartel and AMD paid PR firms to spread disinformation, and AMD fanboys and Slashdot geeks who come after every IP claim thoroughly trashed their reputation. When TI left the DRAM industry, they struggled for years to get paid for their patents, and the remaining industry did not want to give up the cozy "we crosslicense everything and never pay" club. That Intel had designated Rambus as its preferred future memory created fear the DRAM makers would lose control of their future design freedom

[pklexton]

Here's to Rambus getting justice and you making a nice profit. I have no dog in this fight. :)

[voxbaryton]

still around mister?