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

To: gnuman who wrote (50408)	8/20/2000 2:51:16 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

I'm sorry, Gene, you seem to be writing way too logically for a Rambus long. Somebody going by the tag "shysterfellow" on Yahoo is obviously a much more reliable and definitive source of legal expertise than anybody who might possibly doubt the soundness of the Rambus position. Which is not to say that Rambus will lose, either. There's a lot of randomness in patent law, as in most legal matters, and silly patent decisions have generated a lot of money. But anybody who expects a quick victory where Rambus gets to charge more for DDR than they do for their own dubious design, or gets to arbitrarily block DRAM makers from the US market if they don't cave on demand, is, er, reading way too many Yahoo posts, I think. Cheers, Dan.

To: gnuman who wrote (50408)	8/20/2000 3:42:56 PM
From: sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

I am not a patent attorney. Rather, a commercial litigator. The patent attorneys I do know are all -- each and every one of them -- engineers, most of whom entered lawschool only after working several years in the private sector. If I've learned one thing as a lawyer its this -- defer to others in areas where their expertise is clearly far greater than my own. In other words, read on at your own risk, as I am not a patent expert, nor will I pretend to be one. What comes next is pure speculation (as I suppose is everything authored by posters on SI). That said, I posted the Yahoo post, not to signal my agreement with the substance, but rather to spark a debate about something different -- and perhaps more relevant to me at least -- than the "usual" we get on this thread. Not to say there hasn't been some interesting banter. ;) So, in my inexpert opinion, and solely from what I have seen, I do not believe the case is a "slam dunk." But as this particular case may be the battleground where Rambus' future profit picture (at least in the intermediate term) is determined, my guess is that the edge currently is in RMBS favor. Most of the DRAM manufacturers, though clearly siding with Infineon, will most likely not want to get too involved -- and that imo would be a mistake for them. Why? Because if Infineon loses, some precedents may be set that'll be hard to overcome for later litigants. IMO, Rambus chose Infineon (as they did Hitachi) for a reason. A legal strategy has been in place for some time. Rambus feels Infineon will be an easier target (than other players) for a victory. And, whether one believes Rambus is entitled to royalties on DDR and SRAM or not, all it may really need is that one victory. The posturing back (as in Jack's recent article) imo is simply that -- posturing. Infineon has the money to fight the suit. And perhaps the stomach for it. But unless it can get the others to fight this battle with it, it may lose the war for the Dramurai. I suspect, however, that Infineon is smart enough to settle if a loss seems inevitable. Say what u will about Hitachi, they didn't screw over the others by digging them into a hole from which they could not escape. Now u asked specifically about the USPTO getting involved. I tend to think this will not be the case. However, as there will likely be international issues that will need to be addressed, if indeed Infineon does have a defense and/or asserts prior patents, I suspect the following line of reasoning will be used by Rambus' attorneys: If USPTO was aware of such a prior patent, and granted RMBS' patents anyway, it thus felt "the subject matter sought to be patented [was]... sufficiently different from what has been used or described before that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention." And that would likely work in RMBS favor I'm afraid. I suspect that Mr. Shysterfellow from Yahoo was probably trying to say just that in his post. If USPTO was unaware of the prior patents, however, that may well work against Rambus as I suspect Rambus had the responsibility to bring such patents to the USPTO's attention. That Rambus brought suit against Infineon suggests, to me at least, that Rambus was aware of those patents. But, again, I am just guessing here. As others have posted, however, lots will happen before the war is indeed over, unless the Dramurai capitulate -- which does not appear likely at the moment.