Whats next for Rambus?
In a major setback for Rambus Inc., a federal jury this week found the company guilty of fraud in its efforts to claim rights to a popular memory technology, awarding $3.5 million to German chip maker Infineon Technologies AG. The ruling was a stinging rebuke for Rambus, which initiated the litigation in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., accusing Infineon of infringing on patents related to synchronous DRAM, a memory technology found in most PCs today, and double-data-rate (DDR) DRAM. While Rambus is known for its self-branded technology, called RDRAM, currently packaged with Intel Corp.’s Pentium 4 processors, the company also claims its patents cover the more widely used and less-costly SDRAM. Last week, Rambus lost an important judgement when the court dismissed its patent infringement claims against Infineon, a ruling Rambus immediately appealed. This week, the court heard Infineon’s countersuit, in which the German company accused Rambus of having improperly based its patents
