Posted on 04/24/2006 11:11:25 AM PDT by fso301
Rambus (RMBS:Nasdaq - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) won a major court victory Monday when a jury found that South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor infringed on the company's patents.
A federal court jury in San Jose, Calif., found that Hynix, the world's No. 2 computer memory maker, infringed on all 10 patents at issue, and awarded Rambus $307 million, according to Pacific American Securities analyst Michael Cohen, who has been attending the trial for the past month.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestreet.com ...
Maybe Kurt Rambis of the LA Lakers. I never did like his "Chester Molester" glasses...
Then again, the Supreme Court isn't any better at deciding patent or tax cases than 12 random jurors would be. And, they are worse at Constitutional issues, for they have the burden of having read the liberal interpretation of what the Constitution should be, versus the average citizen's understanding of the words that it actually says.
analyst Michael Cohen, who has been attending the trial for the past month...
That must have been brutal.
Actually, at least three of the jurors had engineering backgrounds.
It was six jurors and two alternates. Three of the jurors had engineering backgrounds. BTW, Hynix went into the trial with two summary judgements of infringement against it. Meaning, a court appointed special master found Hynix to be guilty of infringement before it ever went to trial.
Anyone still have a computer with Rambus memory?
According to the jury, anyone whose PC has Hynix memory in it.
I haven't seen anything but DDR in several years.
True. I like the German way, there is one specialized federal patent court, with no juries. You're more likely to get an informed judgement with that set-up.
It has subsided since their attempt at cornering the RAM market with a submarine patent.
From the article:
"The bulk of the damages reportedly relate to DDR memory technology, with about $30 million involving SDRAM."
Must be some small component of DDR if it's only worth 300 million, and only involves one company.
I think that every does as Rambus went off a few years ago and patented every conceivable type of memory system.
{Anyone still have a computer with Rambus memory?
According to the jury, anyone whose PC has Hynix memory in it.}
It goes deeper than that. Intel, Microsoft and AMD are on the hit lists. Processor technology is based on the patent rights that Rambus was just awarded. This has been in courts for years. At one point their stock was down around $4. My family is close to it and has been watching very carefully. This case was suppose to be a catalyst to get settlements and rights to fees from others.
They stopped trading today at $45 something to prevent the craziness of up and down that has happened in the past. They are working toward the slow climb to $150 per share.
I'm in it and proud of it.
A popular misconception. No submarine to it. The facts are already out. Suggest you read the 300+ page Initial Decision by Chief Administrative Law Judge Steven McGuire in the matter of FTC -v- Rambus. Rambus clearly had the patents and the industry thought they could steal them. The popular misconceptions are due to whorish trade press in league with criminally colluding memory makers to rape and pillage this small company.
To put it another way, Rambus has patents that are fundamental to the operation of high speed memory devices, memory controllers and interconnects.
The list includes well known types such as SDRAM, DDR1 and DDR2. Todays verdict just applies to SDRAM and DDR1 product made by Hynix.
Plenty of other companys in the same predicament. Hynix was just the first to go down.
I'm familiar with patent stealing. If a small company won in court it must be pretty blatant.
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