Rambus Loses
Arik Hesseldahl, Forbes.com, 05.09.01, 4:38 PM ET
NEW YORK - In a case that's gone from bad to worse for chip-technology designer Rambus, a federal jury in Richmond, Va., ruled that the company had committed fraud by withholding its patent information from an industry standards group. The jury awarded German chipmaker Infineon $3.5 million in damages.
However, the jury found that Rambus had not committed any racketeering violations against Infineon.
In a case that has been closely watched by much of the semiconductors industry, Rambus (nasdaq: RMBS - news - people) had sued Infineon (nyse: IFX - news - people) over chip patents it said it holds on memory chips that Infineon makes. Infineon said the Rambus patents were not executed properly, and filed counterclaims that Rambus had acted fraudulently by not disclosing them when the chip industry was setting standards for memory chips in the early 1990s.
Rambus vowed to appeal. "Today's verdict, if allowed to stand, poses a serious threat to all technology companies that try to protect their inventions through our intellectual property laws. It puts innovators at risk of forfeiting their intellectual property rights by simply attending meetings of a standard setting committee,'' Chief Executive Geoff Tate said in a Rambus statement.
The loss comes a week after U.S. District Court Judge Robert Payne threw out Rambus' patent claims against Infineon, saying the company had failed to prove its case.
In addition to the promised appeals, Rambus has yet another lawsuit coming to trial in a German court with Infineon, and other similar trials pending against U.S. chipmaker Micron Technologies (nyse: MU - news - people) and Hynix, a Korean chipmaker formerly known as Hyundai Electronics. |
