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

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (46016)	6/26/2000 8:53:00 AM
From: Dan3	Respond to of 93625

Re: Does anyone have any examples of some recent sweeping patents that were issued and successfully challenged (and tossed?) The MELA case would appear to be spot on relevant: This is probably why Rambus didn't even try to perpetrate this particular fraud until there wasn't any other significant value left in the company - they have very little left to lose. In 1991, JEDEC members began considering the development of standards for SDRAM technology. Rambus began attending JEDEC committee meetings no later than December 1991 and formally joined as a committee member at least as early as 1992. JEDEC's Disclosure Rules 100. Before Rambus had attended its first JEDEC committee meeting, JEDEC members had established and had been following a policy governing the disclosure of patents and patent applications of those firms and individuals participating in its meetings: all participants in the meetings were obligated to inform those present of any knowledge they had of any patents or pending patents that might relate to the work the JEDEC members were undertaking. Participants were thus required to disclose any patents or patent applications that could bear upon a standard that JEDEC members had under development. Upon disclosure, holders of patents or applications were to make their patents available without charge or under reasonable terms and conditions that were demonstrably free of any unfair discrimination. 101. The purpose of JEDEC's policy governing the disclosure of patents and applications was to prevent any single firm from secretly capturing the industry standard and to prevent an unscrupulous member from manipulating the standards-setting process to its personal advantage, so it could extract unreasonable and discriminatory royalties from those who manufacture their products to be compatible with the standard. 102. An example of the disclosure policy's importance occurred in the early 1990s. In the early 1990s, two JEDEC members, Wang Laboratories, Inc. ("Wang") and Mitsubishi Electric America, Inc. ("MELA"), became involved in a patent dispute relating, in part, to Wang's failure to disclose certain patent applications in accordance with the JEDEC disclosure policy. Wang first sued MELA alleging patent infringement. MELA countersued Wang, asserting that Wang's failure to disclose the patent applications rendered the resulting patents that issued unenforceable through equitable estoppel, and that, by failing to disclose the patent applications and by trying to enforce the resulting patents, Wang violated the antitrust laws. Wang Lab., Inc. v. Mitsubishi Elec. Amer. Inc., No. CV 92-4698 JGD (C.D. Cal. 1993). 103. Wang moved for summary judgment on MELA's equitable estoppel defense. The district court denied the motion, holding that MELA had created a genuine issue of fact in support of the equitable estoppel defense. MELA eventually prevailed at a trial that did not address MELA's antitrust claims. The case was resolved before those claims were fully litigated. Taken from a brief filed by Hitachi theregister.co.uk