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

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (46715)	7/8/2000 1:21:36 AM
From: The Prophet	Respond to of 93625

Oooh, scaaaary business exposed by Professional Sleuth and all-around top-gun, Jaaaaack Robertson! What will this poor man do after RMBS wraps it all up. Perhaps reinvestigate the link between the Kennedys and RDRAM?

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (46715)	7/8/2000 1:59:22 AM
From: The Prophet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Look what else Jack is up to. This one may be a real scoop: Patents are 'royalty' pain for DRAM industry -- IC makers may ask FTC to investigate Rambus on antitrust grounds Jul. 07, 2000 (Electronic Buyers News - CMP via COMTEX) -- Major DRAM manufacturers are quietly planning to file an industry antitrust complaint against Rambus Inc. with the Federal Trade Commission, according to high-level industry sources last week. The move would be a pre-emptive strike to have Rambus' synchronous-DRAM interface patents declared unenforceable. The biggest memory makers also want to block further attempts by Rambus to force them to pay royalties on their mainstream SDRAMs, double-data-rate SDRAMs, and logic controllers with synchronous interfaces. Rambus last month said it planned to seek royalties from any company using its patented synchronous-memory technology in a sweeping claim aimed at virtually all DRAM vendors and a number of other chip suppliers. Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. have since separately agreed to license the patents and pay Rambus unspecified royalties. The legal wrangling would appear to have far-reaching implications for OEMs pondering whether to use conventional SDRAM or adopt Rambus' proprietary Direct Rambus DRAM devices. The company so far has charged at least one OEM with infringing its synchronous- memory technology, adding Sega Enterprises Ltd. to a suit it had filed against Hitachi. The game-console maker was implicated because the Hitachi SH microprocessors found in some of its game consoles were alleged to use Rambus' synchronous technology. With their OEM customers at risk, "the [semiconductor] industry has no choice but to bring litigation against Rambus," said Bob Merritt, an analyst at Semico Research Corp., Redwood City, Calif. "However, far more is at stake," Merritt said. "When Rambus filed patent-infringement charges against Sega, an OEM chip customer, it opened Pandora's box. Suddenly every OEM customer of SDRAMs, DDR, chipsets, or microprocessors interfacing to synchronous memory is vulnerable to being sued by Rambus. Neither memory producers nor their customers can tolerate this unsettled situation, and it has to be resolved." The FTC petition would be filed by a contingent of DRAM companies that are now holding final meetings before deciding within the next two weeks whether to take the antitrust action, according to sources involved in the discussions. No DRAM company contacted would comment on the issue. A senior executive at one of the industry's largest DRAM suppliers would say only that, "I expect to be spending a lot of my time with lawyers in the next few months." JEDEC chairman Desi Rhoden was out of town and unavailable for comment. Avo Kanadjian, vice president of worldwide marketing at Rambus, Mountain View, Calif., said he knew nothing about the potential plan and refused to speculate on the company's reaction to a possible antitrust challenge. A vice president at one of the so-called Big Five DRAM producers, who declined to be identified, told EBN that memory vendors had hoped the Rambus synchronous patents would be invalidated as the intellectual-property house proceeded with its lawsuit against Hitachi and Sega. Hitachi used an antitrust defense in challenging Rambus' patent claims and said it had been using technology garnered during open JEDEC (Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council) sessions in the early 1990s. However, Hitachi surprised the industry last month by agreeing to settle the suit, leaving the counterclaim unresolved. In ending the litigation, Hitachi agreed to license and royalty fees, but pointedly refused to recognize Rambus' patent claim as valid. Sega was dropped from the complaint at the same time. Kanadjian said he doubted major DRAM makers will press any of the issues that Hitachi raised in its initial defense. "Hitachi tried to add five major DRAM manufacturers to the case, and all of them refused to join," he said. "If these companies agreed with Hitachi, they could have joined the case at that time." Still, Merritt said that aside from the deals brokered with Hitachi and Toshiba, other DRAM manufacturers are unlikely to willingly pay for technology that they believe is common property. "Semiconductor firms, of course, don't want to pay royalties on synchronous technology they feel was pre-existing long before Rambus ever filed for patents," he said. The charges being drafted for the FTC complaint do in fact parallel Hitachi's defense, according to sources involved in the effort. As reported earlier this year, Hitachi argued before the U.S. International Trade Commission that Rambus had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The company alleged that Rambus tried to monopolize the memory market by forcing chip manufacturers to use its proprietary Direct RDRAM design and then by interfering with the adoption of competitive SDRAM technology by asserting rights to synchronous-interface patents. Hitachi also claimed that synchronous DRAMs and logic interfaces are open industry standards developed by JEDEC. The company said Rambus was a participant in JEDEC deliberations during which the standards were drafted, but pulled out of the body in 1995 and filed amended synchronous-patent applications soon after. Hitachi said Rambus violated JEDEC rules and tried to restrain trade by refusing to reveal its patent intentions during open panel discussions. The company cited a 1996 FTC antitrust case against Dell Computer Corp. in which Dell was cited for failing to disclose patents evolved during open-standards deliberations by a body similar to JEDEC. Dell subsequently signed a consent decree with the FTC that prohibited the company from enforcing any of the patents it failed to disclose to the standards group. Kanadjian contended that Rambus analyzed the Dell FTC consent decree after Hitachi brought it up during the ITC case. "There's no similarity between the Dell action and Rambus patents," he said. Hitachi also alleged in its initial reply that the Rambus synchronous patents were invalid because of "prior art," meaning that the technology was in wide use long before the Rambus patents were granted. This claim may not be a main part of the petition now being framed, since the FTC doesn't have the authority to determine patent validity. http://www.ebnonline.com/ By: Jack Robertson Copyright 2000 CMP Media Inc. quotes.freerealtime.com