Rambus wins crucial decision in Nvidia patent battle

Rambus wins crucial decision in Nvidia patent battle
A U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge has dealt a setback to Nvidia Corp. in a legal patent dispute with chip-maker Rambus. Judge Theodore Essex said that Nvidia is violating three patents owned by Rambus, while dismissing two other patents as invalid. Rambus Inc. is attempting to force Nvidia to patent royalties over technology in use in Nvidia graphics chips.

Nvidia is just one of many companies that Rambus is pursuing with the goal of gaining lucrative settlements and royalties. On January 19th, South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. agreed to pay $900 million to end a legal dispute with Rambus over computer memory chips. The consumer electronics manufacturer said it will come to a licensing deal with Rambus following the legal dispute.



"We're going to continue to fight this," said David Shannon, Nvidia's general counsel, adding that the company's customers "know we're going to take this as far as we have to take it." Judge Theodore Essex' decision is subject to review by the full commission, but it could potentially result in a ban on imports of Nvidia products that use the patented technology, which could include computers made by Hewlett-Packard.

Rambus General Counsel Tom Lavelle said the company is "very interested in having productive constructive settlement discussions with Nvidia whenever they’re ready."

Written by: James Delahunty @ 23 Jan 2010 9:06
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  • 12 comments
  • ZippyDSM

    Was'nt rambus stealing/hiding sht like crazy?

    23.1.2010 14:54 #1

  • borhan9

    What technology is Rambus claiming that Nvidia is taking?? play nice and have a settlement and both parties should be happy after that.

    25.1.2010 03:47 #2

  • xnonsuchx

    Originally posted by borhan9: What technology is Rambus claiming that Nvidia is taking?? play nice and have a settlement and both parties should be happy after that.Rambus has a number of high speed memory bus patents, which of course all CPUs/GPUs/etc. could be affected by. They tend to be sue-happy, though, as the company has had some rocky history.

    25.1.2010 21:29 #3

  • borhan9

    Quote:Originally posted by borhan9: What technology is Rambus claiming that Nvidia is taking?? play nice and have a settlement and both parties should be happy after that.Rambus has a number of high speed memory bus patents, which of course all CPUs/GPUs/etc. could be affected by. They tend to be sue-happy, though, as the company has had some rocky history.So basically this is just some free publicity for this company that hardly anyone knows about :) lol

    25.1.2010 21:41 #4

  • ZippyDSM

    Quote:Quote:Originally posted by borhan9: What technology is Rambus claiming that Nvidia is taking?? play nice and have a settlement and both parties should be happy after that.Rambus has a number of high speed memory bus patents, which of course all CPUs/GPUs/etc. could be affected by. They tend to be sue-happy, though, as the company has had some rocky history.So basically this is just some free publicity for this company that hardly anyone knows about :) lolThey are like sony in some respects, they think they are all that, specs on paper out preform real world tests, and they have a tendency to not paly far...oh wait they are more like MS......

    25.1.2010 21:47 #5

  • borhan9

    Quote:Quote:Quote:Originally posted by borhan9: What technology is Rambus claiming that Nvidia is taking?? play nice and have a settlement and both parties should be happy after that.Rambus has a number of high speed memory bus patents, which of course all CPUs/GPUs/etc. could be affected by. They tend to be sue-happy, though, as the company has had some rocky history.So basically this is just some free publicity for this company that hardly anyone knows about :) lolThey are like sony in some respects, they think they are all that, specs on paper out preform real world tests, and they have a tendency to not paly far...oh wait they are more like MS......LOL!!!

    25.1.2010 23:20 #6

  • SomeBozo

    Rambus should just die. Anyone else remember the crap memory Rambutt use to make vs DDR2? Rambutt cost 800/GB and DDR2 was like 250/GB. Worse part a design flaw in the Rambutt memory, the fix was to slow the memory to effectively the same speed DDR2. People should have sued Rambutt for false advertisement...

    26.1.2010 12:52 #7

  • xnonsuchx

    Originally posted by borhan9: Originally posted by xnonsuchx: Originally posted by borhan9: What technology is Rambus claiming that Nvidia is taking?? play nice and have a settlement and both parties should be happy after that.Rambus has a number of high speed memory bus patents, which of course all CPUs/GPUs/etc. could be affected by. They tend to be sue-happy, though, as the company has had some rocky history.So basically this is just some free publicity for this company that hardly anyone knows about :) lolAnyone familiar w/ the computer industry should be well-aware of them.

    26.1.2010 15:29 #8

  • KillerBug

    Originally posted by SomeBozo: Rambus should just die. Anyone else remember the crap memory Rambutt use to make vs DDR2? Rambutt cost 800/GB and DDR2 was like 250/GB. Worse part a design flaw in the Rambutt memory, the fix was to slow the memory to effectively the same speed DDR2. People should have sued Rambutt for false advertisement...No, they should sue Intel for forcing them to get that crummy memory...or they should be kicking themselves for buying an Intel platform at all...the the Athlon came out at about the same time as Rambust.

    [DFI M2RS] [Athlon 9950] [ATI 3870HD] [Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600] [6GB Corsair DDR2] [4x Seagate ST31500341AS + 3ware 9690SA = 4.5TB RAID5] [2x Seagate 750GB + 2x Seagate 500GB + Adaptec 1430SA = 750GB RAID1 + 500GB RAID1] [Intel Gigabit NIC (PCI)] [LG 20X Lightscribe DVDR] [Coolmax 1200w Power Supply] [Logitech G15(first edition)] [Logitech G5(Second Edition)] [320GB Hitachi Boot] [320GB Hitachi Temp/Swap] [Modified and overgrown 4U Rackmount case] [22" & 24" screens mounted overhead] [Perfect Chair 085] [Logitech 5.1 Audio] [Windows 7 RC1]

    26.1.2010 23:01 #9

  • SomeBozo

    I agree completely with you, only problem Intel owned a huge percentage of Rambutt, or at least they use to when Intel tried for force everyone to only use Rambutt memory. Fortunately i waited long enough for DDR2 to catch on and avoid the entire Intel/Rambutt bs...

    27.1.2010 03:03 #10

  • john_swan

    IBM charged a license fee to adapter card manufacturers to interface to the microchannel for the PS/2 computers. The computer industry migrated to a new industry standard interface (PCI).

    Today computers contain computer chips designed and manufactured by many suppliers. This judgement would increase the cost of many consummer products which will decrease demand. The judgement will result in the loss of thousands of jobs across the computer industry. Better buy Nvidia products before they get pulled from the shelves.

    8.2.2010 02:26 #11

  • SomeBozo

    Originally posted by john_swan: IBM charged a license fee to adapter card manufacturers to interface to the micro-channel for the PS/2 computers. The computer industry migrated to a new industry standard interface (PCI).

    Today computers contain computer chips designed and manufactured by many suppliers. This judgment would increase the cost of many consumer products which will decrease demand. The judgment will result in the loss of thousands of jobs across the computer industry. Better buy Nvidia products before they get pulled from the shelves.
    Excellent point :)

    8.2.2010 03:08 #12

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