Chip designer Rambus was on Wednesday found guilty of fraud, the
conclusion to its failed lawsuit against German chip maker
Infineon. It has been ordered to pay $3.5 million in punitive
damages. Rambus has already said it will appeal.
Rambus originally accused Infineon, Europe’s biggest chip maker,
of infringing its memory chip patents and sought an order for
payment of royalties. It cited 57 separate infringements, but all
of them were last week thrown out by the judge. Infineon
counter-claimed, accusing Rambus of using fraudulent means to
obtain the patents. It sought $105 million in punitive damages. The
judge allowed the jury to consider Infineon’s counter-claim.
The jury found that Rambus committed fraud by taking part in a
chip industry project to develop open-standard fast memory chips
while hiding from the project’s committee the fact that it had
pending patent applications on conflicting technology.
The jury in the Richmond, Virginia court found Rambus guilty of
fraud and ordered it to pay the sum of $3.5 million, over $100
million less than that claimed by Infineon.
Rambus is heavily dependent upon royalties from its patents –
they account for more than three-quarters of its current revenues.
It is separately suing Micron and Hyundai’s Hynix with similar
allegations of patent infringements. It also has another pending
lawsuit against Infineon in Germany.
