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

To: Don Green who wrote (71968)	5/4/2001 7:46:30 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93625

Judge narrows scope of Rambus' Infineon suit By George Leopold, EE Times May 4, 2001 (3:34 PM) URL: eetimes.com WASHINGTON — In the wake of a series of setbacks for Rambus Inc. this week in its patent infringement suit against Infineon Technologies AG, some case-watchers said the memory designer is already setting up an appeal in the event that it loses. At the opening of the second week of a jury trial in Richmond, Va., U.S. District Judge Robert Payne granted a motion by Infineon to dismiss all but three patent infringement claims brought by Rambus (Los Altos, Calif.) against the German chip maker. The original suit filed by Rambus last August included 57 claims against Infineon covering four patents. In court documents filed Wednesday (May 2), Payne ruled that the remaining three claims would be excluded for now from his April 30 order. Significantly, Payne also dismissed a key Rambus claim that Infineon had willfully infringed Rambus' SDRAM patents. Rambus alleged in its original complaint that Infineon had "actively induced" infringement of the SDRAM patents, obtained in September 1999 and covering SDRAMs with programmable and internal registers. Procedural move? The judge was expected to consider a motion by Infineon's lawyers to dismiss the remaining three infringement claims by Rambus after both sides filed legal briefs. Despite its rough week in court, Rambus could be setting up its appeal on procedural grounds, industry observers said. One possible argument for an appeal is the court's narrowly defined descriptions applied to Rambus patents. Earlier, the two sides held a so-called Markman hearing before Payne to argue whether the patents apply to the bus architectures used in modern DRAMs, in which the address and data buses are multiplexed. Sources said the narrow definitions could be limiting the scope of questioning during the trial. Another question is whether Payne will pre-empt the jury, which was seated late last month, and issue a summary judgment in Infineon's favor. If so, analysts said, this could also provide Rambus with grounds for an appeal. Meanwhile, analysts said the maneuvering could also be aiding other Rambus foes, including Micron Technology Inc. (Boise, Idaho), which could subpoena documents unearthed in the Richmond case. The two companies may square off in a Delaware court later this year. Also at issue in the hard-fought patent infringement case are the proceedings of standards groups like the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (Jedec) on SDRAM specs. Part of the jury trial and a possible appeal revolves around Jedec deliberations and pending Rambus patent applications. One issue is whether Rambus was the only chip maker that failed to disclose its SDRAM patent applications during the standards debate. Fabless bias Industry sources said Jedec members regularly tried to keep Rambus out of the group's deliberations on SDRAM standards because it was a fabless company. "They hated their [Rambus'] business model," one participant said. David Balto, a Washington attorney and former policy director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition, said the outcome of the patent infringement case could affect the way standards groups like Jedec operate in the future. These groups are drawing closer antitrust scrutiny, he said, as companies attempt to leverage their intellectual property to strengthen market share. The jury trial is expected to last three to four weeks, court personnel said. Despite the drastically narrowed scope of the case, a Rambus spokeswoman noted this week that "we only need one claim to be able to proceed in this case." Infineon would not comment.