Night Owl, I think that a win in Europe will cause a domino effect and the Dramurai will all fall in "line". MU suit is a "nuissance suit", there was never a win on the ground of Sherman where the defendant was not a producer of the good in the market, simply because an IP company business is to make the IP available to all willing to pay the licensing fees and royalties, not block competitors from producing by using blocking IP (Rambus is not a producer). A win in Europe will close the European markets to MU if it does not settle. Of course, it could settle in Europe and attempt not to settle in the US, but you must admit that if they do that and come before the court and say: "they prevent us from producing, but not really, since we ship product under license to Europe". The whole argument of "unfair trade practices" and market dominance, will fall apart.
If these tenets hold waters, it make sense for Rambus not to push for a fast resolution of the MU suit, at least not before they smell victory in Germany. All IMHO, of course.
I think this thread is not realizing the major difference between the "first to invent" and "the first to file". Part of MU complaints was that somehow, SDRAM and DDR were invented at JEDEC. I am not going to go into an argument whether this is a valid tenet or not (I'll state that IMHO, it is non sense), the important point is that such an argument could be operative in a country (like the US) where rights to IP go to the "first to Invent", but in Europe (and Japan) to the "first to file". Thus even if somehow, MU could make a case about Jedec being instrumental in inventing SDRAM and DDR, it just does not matter, since Rambus filed the patents first (and have priority dates to April 1990, since their patents were filed within a year of the original US application, in April 1991, by the way, both dates before Rambus ever sat on a JEDEC committee).
Zeev |
