A lawyers' opinion of the Infineon lawsuit rumor.
Re: Thoughts on Infineon Countersuit
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I haven't checked the boards since last Thursday; my apologies to all who have requested my opinion the last few days.
I'm not entirely sure I understand Infineon's legal position, because if my understanding is correct their argument is complete and utter nonsense in terms of patent law. If I understand the posts correctly, Infineon is suing RMBS for patent infringement (as opposed to a state law claim like unfair competition) for RMBS' licensing program for RDRAM.
The patent laws create infringement liability where the infringer "makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells" the patented invention. Thus, a prerequiste for infringement is the existence of an infringing product. RMBS' entire and sole output as I understand it is simply data (i.e., paper and electronic versions of its IP and standards). While I don't know exactly what patents Infineon is asserting, you cannot patent the content on a piece of paper. The patent laws allow patents to be obtained for any new, useful, and unobvious "process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter." Unless someone can point me to an actual product that RMBS makes, my opinion is that (again, unless I have missed the boat here) Infineon's countersuit is a VERY bad example of grasping at straws. Does anyone have a copy of the actual counterclaim as filed? I keep thinking I must be missing something, because to be honest, Infineon is taking a risk of being sanctioned by the Judge for filing a frivolous pleading if it is claiming that RMBS' licensing program ALONE can create patent infringement liability. To respond to brighteight's point, the patent laws DO NOT require anyone to license anything, and liability for infringement rests solely on whether an accused product contains every element in the claim of the patent being asserted.
Several people have asked about the withdrawal of the Hyundai ITC case. This has all the hallmarks of an overall litigation coordination strategy, and suggests that RMBS now believes an ITC case either won't speed things up or doesn't offer enough benefit to be worth the cost. An ITC case is relatively easy to file (especially where you've already been involved in other litigation with the same company) but it is extremely cost-intensive because it proceeds very fast and requires a lot of lawyers to make it work properly. I could guess any number of reasons why RMBS might have decided to pull the plug, but they would all be speculation. However, past history indicates they are very unsentimental about filing (and now withdrawing lawsuits), and that their focus is (properly) the end result desired, not the means to it. |
