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

To: Tom Pulley who wrote (14806)	1/31/1999 12:11:00 AM
From: Dave B	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 93625

Tom, Your post raised an issue that was covered in the annual meeting and which unclewest said something about, but further clarification is warranted. Re: the royalty payments and patents. As long as the chip has technology in it that is based on at least one Rambus patent, then the mfrs. owe Rambus royalties. Once the patents expire, then no more royalty can be charged. That was new news to me. But of course, Rambus expects to keep generating new patents covering even faster and faster technologies, so in 10 or 15 or 17 years (whenever the current patents expire) they should still have Rambus technology in memory and logic chips. Assuming they stay ahead of everyone else. This doesn't change anything w.r.t. the overall picture. It was just an interesting point about royalties that I learned at the annual meeting. To answer your question, we've tried to estimate earnings several times in the past and you may want to check some of unclewests old posts. In general, there is no fixed royalty rate because licensees can buy a lower royalty rate by paying more contract fee up front. Rambus does not disclose individual royalty rates. The collective wisdom (wild ass guess?) is that DRAM manufacturers pay about 1.7% (I don't know where we got that number). Logic chips pay 2% to 5%. Tate reiterated at the meeting that Intel pays a very, very low royalty (probably close to 0%). Dave B