Tech
Judge throws out Rambus suit
A federal judge in Virginia on Friday threw out the three remaining patent infringement claims brought by memory chip designer Rambus against European chipmaker Infineon. Rambus had sought a court ruling that Infineon's production of standard SDRAM and DDR-DRAM memory chips infringes on Rambus patents.
A federal judge in Virginia on Friday threw out the three remaining patent infringement claims brought by memory chip designer Rambus against European chipmaker Infineon.
Rambus had sought a court ruling that Infineon's production of standard SDRAM and DDR-DRAM memory chips infringes on Rambus patents. Other chipmakers already have agreed to pay royalties to Rambus for those chips.
The stakes were high for Rambus. According to royalty rates revealed during the trial, Rambus is collecting close to $2 for each 128MB DDR DRAM chip sold by chipmakers--including market leader Samsung--that have signed agreements with the company. One analyst estimated Rambus could reap as much as $1 billion in royalty payments, retroactive over the past decade, if it was successful in its case against Infineon. Full story. --Ian Fried, Special to ZDNet News