Infineon Turns Tables on Rambus
By Steven Fyffe, Electronic News
Oct 06, 2000 --- Infineon Technologies AG is turning the tables on Rambus Inc. and accusing the litigious intellectual property (IP) house of violating its patents.
Rambus is already in the process of suing Infineon in Germany and the U.S. for allegedly infringing its patents covering SDRAM and DDR memory technology.
But Infineon has reportedly struck back at Rambus, hitting the Mountain View, Calif.-based IP house where it hurts with claims that Rambus’ proprietary RDRAM design is based on earlier patents from Infineon.
Infineon claims it had pre-existing designs covering both SDRAM and direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), in a countersuit filed with the federal district court in Richmond. Va. today.
Infineon, which spun off from German chipmaker Siemens AG in 1999, also alleges that Rambus illegally distributed Infineon’s IP by licensing RDRAM chip designs to third parties.
Infineon executives in the U.S. were typically tight-lipped about the court case, issuing a terse no comment statement on behalf of the Munich, Germany-based memory maker.
Analysts said Infineon’s attempt to beat Rambus at its own game was a dramatic turnaround of events.
“It was definitely quite a revelation,” said Bob Merritt, director of emerging markets at Semico Research Corp.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some prior art in the other areas (of SDRAM and DDR), but if Infineon claims to have prior art that questions direct Rambus DRAM, that is kind of interesting.”
Infineon’s surprise patent claims might also extend to the legal battles Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. Ltd. and Micron Technology Inc. are currently waging against Rambus in Europe and the U.S. But that still remains to be seen, Merritt said.
“If this is from some public forum like JEDEC, it is equally accessible to all the DRAM manufacturers.”
Both sides may be trying to capitalize on the technical complexity of the case, said Walt Lahti, vice president of market research at Integrated Circuit Engineering Corp.
“My suspicion would be that there is some real confusion there about who owns what, and I guess going to court would resolve that confusion. It is escalating, and now everybody is looking at everything.”
In a strange turn of events, Rambus said late today it had filed a motion to dismiss its pending U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) complaint against Hyundai, on the same day ITC officials came forward to say they were ready to go ahead with an investigation.
The move was part of its effort to get the courts to consolidate its cases against Infineon and Hyundai in one place, Rambus said, in a statement.
Rambus is filing a motion to move its pending litigation with Hyundai from the U.S. district court in San Jose to the U.S. district court for the Eastern District of Virginia where the Infineon case is now being heard.
Rambus said it would still file suit against Hyundai for “alleged willful patent infringement” and would “seek injunctions to halt the sale, manufacture, and use of Hyundai SDRAM and DDR SDRAM memory devices that infringe the Rambus IP”. |
