Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: L. Adam Latham who wrote (166651)	6/19/2002 9:25:00 PM
From: Windsock	Respond to of 186894

The focus of the Rambus antitrust case by the FTC is damage to consumers but it is not at first clear why that is so. But consider who are the "customers" for the Rambus DDR patents. They are the DDR manufacturers who must buy a license says Rambus. The FTC pursued Dell in the early 90s when it started to assert a patent on the VL bus, a video bus standard that had a short life. Dell sat on the standards committee that set the standard and failed to disclose the pending patents. The norm for membership on a standards committe is a requirement to disclose a patent position and agree to license the patent position for at least a reasonable fee. Often a royalty free license is offered in return for a licens of any other patents in order to promote adoption of the standard. Notable examples are the PCI bus, AGP and USB promoted by Intel and the HyperThing promoted by AMD. Dell agreed to settle the investigation of the FTC by agreeing not to enforce its patent. Patents have a special set of rules that trigger the antitrust laws because a patent grants the right to exclude others from a market -- by nature an anti-competitive act. A new rule that developed recently is that you can not play "hide the ball" at a standards committee where you promote a standard while secretly patenting the technology. The patent right to exclude others for a limited time under the US law is a trade for publishing information in the patent so it is available to the public. Because of possible patent protection you will also see companies publishing papers at conferences like ISSC and Microprocessor Forum. Virtually all major companies have a clearance process for publications that includes a check list item asking whether patent applications are or will be filed. Without patent protection most companies would just keep key technology secret.