I am not sure if the MU/RMBS legal contest cannot be completely analyzed in terms of "rational deliberations". There was probably a moment in the Tate/Appleton relationship where A told T something equivalent to: "I'll freeze in hell before I pay you a penny in royalties" to which T could have replied with something like "...and if your brain was on fire, I would not p$%%s in you ear to extinguish it..."
Sure the legal costs will probably not exceed $20 MM on each side (I doubt it will go on for years and gets into the $100 MM range), but the stakes, it is not the $60 to $100 MM in yearly royalties that MU may have to pay, it is the potential loss of a big chunk of their $6 B business if they do not settle. On the other hand, Rambus must really win every case. Someone suggested on the thread that with six suits outstanding, it is unlikely that all the judges (and the juries) will come to the same conclusion. I disagree, I believe that the first suit adjudicated will set the tone for all others, even those that are not fought on patents validity grounds, but on Sherman (or Clayton) act. The first suit will come in Germany, and I have not heard of many cases where German courts invalidated EU patents, but I am no expert in this field. Because the German court will have to follow the European dictum of "First to file" rather than "first to invent", the whole Jedec issue and whether Rambus participated in those meeting to "steal" the SDRAM and DDR IP (which all documents I have seen point to that not being the case) will not be adjudicated. Since Rambus disclosed pretty much all the prior art then existing in their patent application, I really see only one outcome to the German suit.
Zeev |
