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Rambus given green light on patent case


The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal by Infineon Technologies over its longstanding dispute with chip rival Rambus. The ruling means that an earlier Court of Appeal decision in favour of Rambus stands, and that Rambus can go ahead with patent actions against Infineon and other companies.

Rambus designs, develops and licenses high-bandwidth chip-connection technologies that enable semiconductor memory devices to keep pace with faster generations of processors and controllers. The company owns more than 100 patents, which it has licensed to around 30 chipmakers.

The dispute involved the SDRM (synchronous dynamic random access memory), and DDR (double data rate) memory chips. These chips allow fast transfer of data, are more efficient than the traditional DRAM chips and are replacing them in most new PCs. Rambus owns patents that it claims cover these technologies.

In 2000, Rambus sued Infineon, Europe's third largest chip manufacturer, claiming that the company uses technologies covered by Rambus patents without a licence. Rambus had already licensed these technologies to Toshiba, Hitachi and Oki Electric. Separate actions were also raised against Hyundai Electronics (now Hynix) and Micron Technology.

Infineon denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit in retaliation. The Munich-based company claimed that Rambus does not own the intellectual property in the patents in question, and that its lawyers illegally manipulated Rambus's existing RDRAM patent, several years after the original filing, to include SDRAM technologies.

The company also accused Rambus of fraud in seeking royalties, by failing to submit details of existing patents and prior art in filing amendments to its patents with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Rambus, Infineon alleged, also tried to hide certain patent applications from the chip industry's standard-setting body, JEDEC.

Finally, Infineon claimed that Rambus stole information from JEDEC committee meetings and used it in its patent amendments, thus giving it control of industry standard SDRAM technology.

Rambus was initially found guilty of fraud due to the non-disclosure of patents and patent applications to JEDEC. The court also issued an injunction barring Rambus from enforcing a number of patent claims against the German chipmaker.

However, in January this year the Federal Court of Appeals agreed with Rambus, and reversed the original decision. Infineon then applied to take the case to the Supreme Court, but on Monday the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, effectively ending the fraud argument.

But the question of patent infringement remains. Rambus is now able to continue with its original case – and will have to prove that Infineon has breached Rambus' patents in the SDRM and DDR chips.

"Today's Supreme Court ruling is another positive step forward for Rambus," said John Danforth, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus.

He continued:

"The Court's ruling today clears the way for our infringement case against Infineon. That trial will focus on Rambus patents whose breadth has now been defined by the Federal Circuit. While we welcome any opportunity to resolve matters amicably rather than through the courts, we are pleased to have these JEDEC-related counterclaims behind us and we remain committed to taking the necessary steps to protect our intellectual property."

Infineon responded:

"It is regrettable that the court will not hear arguments in these matters, despite the evidence presented in the appeal and the separate briefs filed with the court by representatives of commercial organizations and 15 states... We intend to vigorously pursue a full and fair resolution."

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