Rambus Wins Battles, Faces Bigger War

Rambus? Those guys are still around? Apparently, despite losing almost $145 million this last quarter, the company is still trying to make a comeback. I think the bigger question might be, after all the lawsuits and such, does the industry want them back?

Rambus, has spent much of the last decade suing many of the biggest names in the computer memory business over its technology patents, and getting sued in turn. As a result, Rambus has been struggling to thrive in a $30 billion industry where it finds itself with few friends, even though it claims its designs are used throughout the industry.

No one likes You Rambus, So just Die already, As You're just So Pathetic.

Sony loves Rambus.

Wait,what? I thought I just finished getting rid of this horrible technology!

these guys are another SCO...

them patenting open standards and then trying to get $$$ for them was funny...what was funnier is that it seemed to work too...

I'm all for Rambus. Competition is a good thing......usually.

Originally Posted by lucky777

I'm all for Rambus. Competition is a good thing......usually.

I don't think you understand too well. It's not about competition, and the memory industry has plenty of competition.

that's what Micron, Samsung, Hynix, Kingston, Infineaon, and many others all do. Rambus was saying that all of them stole Rambus' ideas and owed Rambus a percentage of all their collective sales. The tech in question was part of an open conference that many companies joined to develop new RAM together, JEDEC.

Related article from the link:

In 1990, Rambus filed for a patent for a new type of memory called RDRAM. The company then became a member of an industry group called Jedec that was trying to agree on standards for another memory technology, called SDRAM.

The F.T.C. cited a half-dozen instances in the mid-1990’s in which it said Rambus had secretly applied to amend a patent to cover technologies Jedec was considering for SDRAM.

I swear, the only time I actually had a hot stock tip. Sell Rambus back when those lawsuits started flying. When was that? 2001?

And by the way, the engineers at that company have had eight years to consider another employer. They are there by choice, and so must agree with the business's course of action. I do not support Rambus, I do not support their employees, and I do not support Infineon for helping them to continue these "Patent Troll" tactics.

I never understand HOW they were getting judges to rule on their side, as was said they basically hit play and recorded the arguments and the proposals for the next standard then rushed it to the patent office, complete with audio of them ordering lunch and said HERE, these are OUR Ideas. (also busting the NDA wide pen as well)

If there never were such conferences then we would probably been 5y behind were we are know.

True other things that can happen to make on standard obsolete, but that is DESIGNED not taking others ideas and claiming them as your own.

When Rambus did come out with there chip the consumer stayed away, because not only did you have to by them in PAIRS, but when they came out they were ridiculously priced (especially compared to the next update of chips)

Originally Posted by pxc

Sony loves Rambus.

you mean sony loves ramming you

I gotta agree with the general consensus here... If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and smells like a duck, it's probably a duck (in this case a patent troll). Regardless of their "good intentions," as everyone knows our patent system is a mess, and you can basically get a patent on pouring piss out of a boot. Since there are only a few ways to pour piss out of a boot, you could basically go around suing everybody (who pours piss out of a boot) for infringing on your patent. This is ridiculous and adds absolutely no value to the consumer, and in the case of Rambus retroactively enforcing a patent that it had added to a open standard while participating in the open standards group (only to withdraw from the group coincidentally around the time a similar patent decision was found against Dell), only hurts the consumer in the end. Until Rambus can actually show some real value to the consumer by working with the industry and not using questionable/litigious tactics all the time, it will always be viewed as a patent troll.

They remind me of Monster sue everybody under the sun. The sad thing is monster still gets people to buy their stuff.

RAMBUS is like herpes. ..