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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin
RMBS 102.22-2.7%3:59 PM EST
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To: multicollinearity who wrote (44798)6/17/2000 3:30:00 PM
From: Scumbria  Read Replies (5) of 93625
 
Multi,

I did some thinking, and I'm starting to understand why there is so much confusion about IP on this thread.

IP in the semiconductor industry is a huge, high-stakes game. Patents are generally issued for very simple and small ideas or concepts. You can't patent a microprocessor design, but you can sometimes patent very small details about the microprocessor if you did something slightly different than anything reported in the past.

Most patents are issued for very obvious and simple concepts, but nevertheless they serve as an important piece of business ammunition.

This is vastly different from a copyright on a book. Let's look at one patent in question, the programmable delay on a memory read in a synchronous DRAM circuit. Ignoring for now Ali's contention that the patent itself has been altered, lets look at the technological details.

This is a completely obvious and essential piece of logic in a memory circuit. EDO memory controllers used similar registers to control the RAS to CAS latency long before anyone heard of SDRAM. This allowed you to use different speed DRAMS in a system with the same memory controller.

Rambus believes that they have (opportunisticaly) extended this patent to synchronous controllers and synchronous memories. There is in fact, no other rational way to set the memory delay on reads, and it is rather obviously necessary, but Rambus has managed to obtain a patent.

Their claims on this particular patent do not seem to me indicative of hard word or innovation, except on the part of their patent law department.

Scumbria
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