Rambus, Hitachi settle legal dispute
Tom Murphy
Jun 22, 2000 --- Less than a week after announcing its first licensing agreement for synchronous DRAM technology, Rambus Inc. said today it has settled its patent infringement claims with DRAM maker Hitachi Ltd. of Japan.
Rambus, a Mountain View, Calif.-based designer of memory ICs, said Hitachi has signed a patent license agreement with Rambus ending its patent infringement litigation against Hitachi with the International Trade Commission, U.S. Federal District Court and a court in the Republic of Germany.
Hitachi will pay Rambus an undisclosed up-front settlement fee, as well as quarterly royalty payments.
Rambus had claimed that Hitachi was using its patented technology to manufacture synchronous DRAM ICs, including SDRAM, Double Data Rate SDRAM and controllers that directly interface with these types of memories. Rambus took action against Hitachi in January when it said the Japanese DRAM maker refused to discuss an SDRAM technology licensing agreement.
However, on June 16, Toshiba became the first DRAM manufacturer to announce it had licensed Rambus? SDRAM technology. Rambus had maintained throughout the Hitachi dispute that it was in negotiations with all DRAM manufacturers for licensing agreements.
Toshiba?s licensing agreement and Hitachi?s decision to settle with Rambus were completely independent, according to both parties.
?Both companies (Toshiba and Hitachi) have internal IP departments,? said Avo Kanadjian, vice president of world wide marketing for Rambus. ?Both have their own independent analysis of the situation, therefore the decisions they reached were independent.?
A spokesperson for Hitachi also said negotiations with Rambus to settle the dispute were in progress before Toshiba's announcement, which Hitachi insists did not influence its decision to settle.
Kanadjian said that as a result of the settlement, Rambus? claim against Sega has also been resolved. Sega uses an Hitachi-made SH controller in its popular video game consoles.
In the suit, Rambus claimed that patents it has had since 1990 cover the fundamental aspects of high speed memory interface, especially those used in the main memory of PCs.
?We are extremely pleased to come to a settlement with Hitachi,? Kanadjian said. ?With the settlement taking place prior to the case going into the courts, it prevents both parties from having to appear in court and it prevents the litigation from going further."
Under the licensing agreement, Rambus stressed that the royalty rates for DDR SDRAM and the controllers are greater than the rates of those for Rambus Direct RDRAM, another high speed memory type which could replace synchronous DRAM as the dominant part in main memory.
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