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

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (51456)	8/27/2000 6:53:09 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

<<They did not leave any "money on the table", they first to establish the correct corporate partnership (it is difficult to chose someone worse than INTC). >> Worse or Better?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (51456)	8/27/2000 10:56:15 PM
From: pompsander	Respond to of 93625

As for why a patent might have taken nine years before it issued, sometimes it is in the company's interest not to open its "kimono" until they got all their ducks in a row. Somehow the vision of Tate or any the Rambus senior management opening their kimono makes me shudder. Zeev, I want to offer congrats on one of the finest basic explanatory posts I have seen in quite a while. And, you got to patronize Carl a little, too. <g>

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (51456)	8/28/2000 10:38:21 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 93625

Hi Zeev Hed; Thanks for the reply explaining how it came to be that Rambus missed collecting royalties on the first 6 years of SDRAM production. The explanation that makes sense is: "It is also quite possible that RMBS and INTC miscalculated the speed at which RAMBUS will be adopted, and it did not make sense to fight the SDRAM fight (without cash in the till) if SDRAM will soon be eradicated and replaced by [R]DRAM." [I assume you mistyped SDRAM for RDRAM in the final word.] In short, even you agree that Rambus and Intel miscalculated. This is your explanation that makes the most sense. Re: "So, why not start enforcing the SDRAM aspects? Bad strategy, INTC could care less in RMBS collects royalties on SDRAM (DDR was not around yet), and the last thing you want is to derail the support from INTC." You will have to explain in greater detail how collecting over a billion dollars in sure money isn't as good a strategy as betting (and losing) on the gamble that your technology will someday emerge triumphant. Re: "I would guess that the delay [was] probably a combination of submarine tactics and natural delays due to the divisional and continuation patents. ... Since a license typically will include a "term" clause, and that clause will typically have a sentence "until the last to expire claim", you want to make sure that royalties on products licensed have as long a life as possible, and it does not make sense to have a patent issued in 1994, even if you could, for something that will not be in the market until 2000 (you lose 1/3 of the life of the patent)." If this was a submarine tactic, why put off the grant until years after SDRAM became dominant? I would think that the best time to start collecting royalties on an invention would be towards the beginning of the technology. Given the very short nature of the lifetime of memory technologies, the statement that Rambus deliberately delayed their patent doesn't make much sense. The fact is that Rambus missed a good portion of their SDRAM revenue stream. Embedded and SOC will replace discrete memory usage long before the '00 Rambus patent grant even thinks about having a midlife crisis, much less actually expires. This may not be obvious to those of you who are experts in patents and trading, but it is very clear to those of us who are experts in memory. -- Carl P.S. Thanks for finally giving me an answer to the question of why Rambus was late with the patent. I was getting ignored on the subject by the locals, and I really did want a dialog to be established.