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

To: Dan3 who wrote (50373)	8/19/2000 11:48:32 PM
From: richard surckla	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

Dan3... Watzman from Yahoo answered this earlier on their thread... Sentinel, You're almost certainly wrong by: Watzman 8/19/00 2:21 pm Msg: 149371 of 149488 You said "A company like Infineon has vast patent holdings and all it would take is one that applies to a key component of RDRAM and RMBS is toast." Here's why it's probably not correct: Rambus does not MAKE ANYTHING. Therefore, by definition, they cannot, themselves, infringe on ANY patent. However, let's say, for the sake of argument, that RDRAM cannot be made without infringing on an Infineon patent. Samsung (for example) makes RDRAM, therefore, in this example (and it's an example ONLY), Samsung, not Rambus, would be infringing on Infineon's patents. HOWEVER, it is very likely (almost certain) that Samsung has a license to use Infineon patents. The license (cross-license, really) comes about (came about) because almost every memory maker has a cross-license agreement with almost every other memory maker allowing each to use the other's patents. Therefore, there is no infringement by Samsung and Samsung can continue making RDRAM memory. This is just an example, I don't know that there ARE any Infineon patents required to make RDRAM, nor do I know for a fact that Samsung and Infineon have a cross license agreement. However, to the extent that an Infineon patent is required to make RDRAM, it is PROBABLY a GENERAL memory patent, not RDRAM specific, but applicable to SDRAM or even to any kind of DRAM. To the extent that this is true, I'm sure that it would be a patent that whatever memory maker might infringe would ALREADY have a license to use it.