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

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (69387)	3/30/2001 2:34:35 PM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Jdaasoc, *Maybe the lawyers on the thread can tell us the next step in this situation." Well, ...I'm a lawyer but I can't tell you the next step. IMHO, that will be up to the parties themselves. IFX seems to have held serve in the Pre-Trial Motion phase and, unless there is some bombshell on April 4 or earlier, the ball will clearly be in RMBS' court. This is all speculation of course, however I would be shocked if RMBS didn't have a Plan B** before calling the bluff of the Dramurai/Barbarian Federation by filing these suits. This may give Carl a case of Traumatic Humoritis, but it goes something like this: 1. RMBS actually believes that its DRDRAM IP is the wave of the future; 2. They are convinced that the only reason it is not in every new MB design since 1999 is because of some "unfortunate" chip design work by INTC on the 820, and/or a conspiracy of the Dramurai/Barbarians to blackball them; 3. They also believe that despite these problems, if they can hold position until CPU speeds approach or bust through 2 GHz, neither the conspiracy nor the design problems can stop DRDRAM from being accepted as the "only answer;" and 4. So they figure that if they sue and win on the SDRAM/DDR IP great. If they sue and lose tough break, but the goal is twofold: (a) use the time until INTC produces a SDRAM or DDR chips for their P4 to maximize DRDRAM sales so as to avoid DDR from squeezing them out of the market completely; and (b) drag out the patent litigation as long as possible to both keep the SDRAM/DDR royalties from the licensees flowing as long as possible and give them a chance at 1.7 and higher GHz speeds on which to compete. Its a life or death strategy, but its the only one I can see at this point. And it fits with their approach to the Dramurai/Barbarians from the beginning, i.e. The "We don't care what you guys think. Our stuff is better and you WILL make it" approach to licensing. True this view would consider the choice of the Virginia venue as a tactical error. But it assumes that RMBS is making its IP arguments in good faith and believed it had/has rights to SDRAM/DDR. If that's true, then they could have viewed IFX as the best defendant to get to trial on first for a variety of reasonable factors. In any case the litigation might go on for years. So barring some 4/4 Bombshell, I don't see any settlement from either the RMBS or IFX view. I think they will continue to litigate until the last possible brief is heard. They could try to go for some industry wide Global settlement that gave all the Fabs uniform and more reasonable license terms that they could accept. But that seems out of character and highly unlikely for current management. So it looks to me like a fight to the finish. Long term RMBS (INTC?:8) wants/needs control of memory IP. IFX won't give that up voluntarily. But only the parties know which way this is going to break. 0\|0