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Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pompsander who wrote (38870)	3/24/2000 9:37:00 PM
From: Jdaasoc	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

pomp: Hitachi's response just as I said it would be. Sega will settle with RMBS quickly for pennies a Dreamcast unit if they are smart. I based ny argument on Medtronic settling with OSTE for selling bonegraft products manufactured by GenSci which Oste sued GenSci first then Medtronic. Patent lawyers are very predictable; they will advise customers to sue first worry about facts laters. Defendents in patents suits put up a vigorous defense until they start seeing the legal bills then they beg to settle. Sega will; Hitachi won't. PS look at OSTE stock price things may get ugly with RMBS just like QCOM and OSTE. Are we a QCOM or an OSTE. john To: Glenn Norman who wrote (1562) From: Glenn Norman Friday, Mar 24, 2000 8:15 PM ET Respond to Post # 1563 of 1567 Yo_BU$$ER$...........IT IS WAR! semibiznews.com Daily news for semiconductor industry managers Hitachi's reply to Rambus: you violated antitrust act, Jedec rules By Jack Robertson Semiconductor Business News (03/24/00, 07:58:45 PM EDT) WASHINGTON -- Hitachi Ltd. today charged in a U.S. district court that Rambus Inc. has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act with its exclusionary patent policy and campaign to intimidate semiconductor producers and their OEM customers. Hitachi filed a counteraction in the Wilmington, Del., federal court asking that Rambus patents on IC synchronous timing techniques be thrown out. (Hitachi also filed a motion asking that the Rambus case be transferred from the Wilmington court to the federal district court in northern California.) The Japanese firm said the Rambus patents cover prior inventions and also usurped technical details that Rambus picked up from participating in industry Jedec (Joint Electron devices Engineering Council) standards meetings. Rambus filed suit Jan. 18 charging Hitachi with infringing its chip timing patents, and last Thursday carried the dispute to the U.S. International Trade Commission, seeking to bar the import of Hitachi semiconductors into this country. Sega Enterprises of Japan was added as defendant in the ITC case because the electronic game player uses the Hitachi SH microprocessor, which Rambus claims violates its patents (see March 23 story). The Hitachi brief alleged that Rambus filed its patent suit only a day after an industry alliance of Intel Corp. and the five largest DRAM makers announced "they would develop an alternative competitive synchronous DRAM interface technology. Rambus has used its lawsuits to assert that [synchronous] products compatible with the Jedec standards infringe Rambus patents, making Rambus technology the dominant, if not sole standard in the industry. "If Rambus has its way, there will be no competition in the technology market for synchronous DRAM technology or in the market for SDRAM memory and logic ships," the brief said. "Rambus' anticompetitive actions are attempting to suppress industry acceptance of anything but Rambus proprietary technology, amid concerns that the alternatives might not be available in the face of potential patent infringement problems." Hitachi charged that Rambus licenses for its Direct RDRAM design also require chip firms to license other technology under threat of not getting rights to the memory chip. The Japanese company charged that these actions have violated the antitrust provisions of the Sherman Act. Hitachi asks the court to nullify the Rambus synchronous chip patents, citing prior inventions in the industry. The brief also said that Rambus participated in industry Jedec standards meetings in the mid-1990s involving synchronous ICs, and gained access to technology it later patented in violation of Jedec open-standard rules. "Rambus took advantage of the information it learned from the participation at the Jedec committee meetings, and from the proposed standards then under discussion. Rambus used that information to revise secretly its then-pending but undisclosed patent applications and to prepare related additional applications to cover the very technology and potential standards being discussed by other JEDEC participants," the brief claimed. "If Rambus' lawsuits are successful, Rambus will have succeeded in converting the Jedec standards setting process from a procompetitive process to one that will serve anticompetitive ends," the document alleged. Hitachi also charged Rambus with violating Jedec policy in not disclosing that it was seeking patents on synchronous technology under discussion. The brief cited Jedec rules that require all participating firms to disclose patent applications that might conflict with any Jedec standard under discussion. It said that courts have overturned patents by Dell Computer Corp. that had been withheld from Jedec standards deliberations in 1995. In addition, Dell signed an antitrust consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission for failing to disclose its patents, the brief said. The document added that one month after the Dell antitrust consent decree, Rambus left Jedec, telling the industry body that Rambus "plans to continue to license its proprietary technology on terms that are consistent with its business plan." BATTLE STATIONS!!! ALL CREW REPORT TO BATTLE STATIONS!