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

To: blake_paterson who wrote (48217)	7/29/2000 9:00:41 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Blake, re: Rambus/Jedec The question for me is, "Why did Rambus join JEDEC"? As early as 1991 the Jedec committees were working on SDRAM, and Rambus participated in those meetings. From the Hitachi filings, Rambus' Participation in JEDEC 109. In 1991, JEDEC members began discussing various technological features for inclusion in an industry standard for SDRAM technology, including an interface technology standard. In developing that standard, JEDEC members and participants discussed, in open meetings, interface technology features such as external and internal clocking, mode registers, latency, and storable burst. Rambus was present at, and participated in, those meetings. Rambus now asserts that those features are covered by the Patents in Suit. Certainly they were aware Jedec is an open standards organization, and if their original plan was to enforce royalties on Rambus IP, wasn't participation in a standards setting process a strategic error? And why were they allegedly silent about their patent applications when Jedec rules require disclosure? 112. From 1991 to 1995, and thereafter, Rambus was silent about its patent applications leading to the Patents in Suit, despite its duty to disclose to JEDEC members the nature and existence of those applications. As for modification and creation of additional IP, 121. Rambus took advantage of the information it learned from the participants 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/or to prepare related additional applications to cover the very technology and potential standards being discussed by other JEDEC participants. 122. By participating in the JEDEC standards development process without disclosing its pending patent applications covering synchronous DRAM interface technology, and by revising its applications and later filing related applications to attempt to make its later-issued patents cover products manufactured to be compatible with the JEDEC standard, Rambus intentionally misled JEDEC members into promulgating standards which, according to Rambus' allegations against Hitachi, is not the open standard the JEDEC members intended and believed it to be. Assuming that Rambus legitimately derived the IP in question, why would they expose themselves to potential FTC antitrust action ? These are Hitachi's claims, of course, but IMO are the basis for the conjecture the major DRAM companies are considering antitrust action through the FTC. JMHO's and TIA