Countersuit threatens Rambus' revenue

A federal judge in Virginia on Friday dismissed the three remaining charges in Rambus' patent infringement suit against Infineon. Rambus said it will appeal.

In its countersuit, Infineon alleges that Rambus should be barred from collecting royalties on the production of SDRAM, the most common form of memory in computers today, and double data-rate (DDR) DRAM, a high-speed version of SDRAM, because of its conduct while a member of a standards-setting body.

If Infineon is successful, the numerous chipmakers that have agreed to pay Rambus royalties on DDR and SDRAM production would likely alter or scrap altogether their payments, chopping Rambus' revenue. --Michael Kanellos, Special to ZDNet News.