Nvidia won't negotiate with Rambus

mathwat · 27 Jan 2010 at 11:42

We talked for eight years before they sued"

Two days ago Rambus won a US ITC case against Nvidia, which found the company violated three Rambus patents in its memory controllers.

However, Nvidia doesn't seem keen to reach a settlement with Rambus, or should we say it doesn't think a settlement is possible at this point, hence it claims it won't negotiate with Rambus.

Nvidia General Counsel David Shannon believes it's not realistic to expect an agreement between the two companies to be reached anytime soon. “Rambus and Nvidia talked for eight years before they sued us,” said Shannon. He stressed that the ruling will not interrupt Nvidia's business. “Our customers will never have their businesses interrupted...Our position is there will be no exclusion order.”

Shannon added that Nvidia has several options to prevent an import ban and that it plans to appeal the ITC decision in court.

source :- http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/17425/1/

More bad news, doesn't look good for nvidia if they get a import ban.

r0cky · 27 Jan 2010 at 11:47

UncertainGod · 27 Jan 2010 at 12:07

The netburst screwups were all Intels fault not Rambus's, who had developed some pretty damn good memory tech.

Trunks9486 · 27 Jan 2010 at 12:48

r0cky said:
Rambus have been causing havoc in the electronics world for years. It's about time someone put them out of their misery.

Samsung had to pay $900 million last week.

Anyone remember the Rambus fiasco with Intel? PC's remained stagnant for years because of that.

They are responsible for some of the most important breakthroughs in memory technologies. Others took advantage of that and paid the price. Rambus is fine, their engineers are brilliant.

Ona sidenote, ATi/Intel and AMD settled out of court.

Orangey · 27 Jan 2010 at 12:58

In May 2001, Rambus was found guilty of fraud for having claimed that they owned SDRAM and DDR technology, and all infringement claims against memory manufacturers were dismissed.

In May 2002, the United Stated Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed charges against Rambus for antitrust violations. Specifically, the FTC complaint asserted that through the use of patent continuations and divisionals, Rambus pursued a strategy of expanding the scope of its patent claims to encompass the emerging SDRAM standard.

Not "fine".

RizlaKing · 27 Jan 2010 at 13:16

Well it looks like they are about to screw someone else over this time being nvidia and if nvidia have any sense they will do what everyone else has and settle quickly. It's easy to have a go at rambus and they deserve some flak but companys should do their homework in the first place and then this wouldn't happen.

drunkenmaster · 27 Jan 2010 at 13:43

r0cky said:
Rambus have been causing havoc in the electronics world for years. It's about time someone put them out of their misery.

Samsung had to pay $900 million last week.

Anyone remember the Rambus fiasco with Intel? PC's remained stagnant for years because of that.

Bull crap, pc's stagnated? Rambus was far to expensive for the average home user computer for a similar cost and Rambus's issues with Intel simply forced them to adopt DDR more quickly, which helped DDR prices come down which helped AMD who were strictly budget back them compete with uber low price systems.

DDR has since dominated and Rambus, while good, was very expensive to use.

Rambus did nothing wrong, they made something fantastic that offered great bandwidth, but should really have been left in the uber high end server market alone. However its generally easier to stick with one memory type/basic chipset design across the board.

Rambus's idea's, patents have been infringed though and people have taken advantage of their tech, rightfully they should be paid, its basically only fair.

Can't really see an issue with Rambus themselves or any effect they've had to date. Is Nvidia using designs that are problematic in terms of Rambus in any current designs? You'd think after 8 years of arguing and not agreeing they'd forsee an eventual lawsuit, you'd think they'd plan ahead and change whatever it was in more recent designs so it wouldn't be an issue.

deuse · 27 Jan 2010 at 13:46

bru · 27 Jan 2010 at 15:57

In a separate proceeding, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is taking a second look at the Rambus patents. The three found to be in violation by Essex were rejected by the agency, Shannon said. Rambus is appealing that decision in a process that will take more than a year, and in the meantime the patents remain valid and enforceable.

“We’re not going to pay on patents that are not valid,” he said.

Source

so if im reading that right, the 3 patent infrngements that Nvidia have been found guilty of infringing have already been found to be not valid.

the whole situation is not quite as clear cut as it looks.

Rroff · 27 Jan 2010 at 16:04

The irony is if they took nVidia up on earlier offers which were inline with industry norms - they'd have made something from this... but by continuing to make unreasonable demands they are likely to end up with a big legal bill and their patents invalidated.

Orangey · 27 Jan 2010 at 16:34

This has almost as many twists and turns as the SCO Unix saga.

Hoodlum · 27 Jan 2010 at 16:45

Good for them, patent trolls need to gtfo.

PGdude · 27 Jan 2010 at 16:54

"We talked for eight years before they sued"

Sounds like a bloody fall out of an old couple.

Trunks9486 · 27 Jan 2010 at 17:34

Orangey said:
Not "fine".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambus#Lawsuits

It has what you said, but the extra bits as well. Court of appeal overturned the decision. And when most companies pay up, it usually means they did something wrong and/or are guilty.

Basically, the situation is not clear cut. Rambus is an IP company though, thus all they can earn is from licensing technologies. It is normal for them to sue if they believe that their patents have been used illegally.

han_solo · 27 Jan 2010 at 20:56

I'd personally be p*ssed if someone 'borrowed' some of the ideas/tech i developed using a lot of time and money... and then there's the legal cost and hassle of bringing them to court... like someone mentioned, it's only fair to get these companies to pay what should have been payed in the first place.

AMG · 27 Jan 2010 at 21:16

at least they are not pointless patents like the company who sued AMD

I would be pretty ****ed too tbh, all that time, money and man power gone in to make something than someone uses it to their advantage

Kribby2006 · 27 Jan 2010 at 22:12

Isnt the "Rambus" a bus that goes round delivering memory to everyone? Thats what I thought

neo-omega · 27 Jan 2010 at 23:37

I thought it was a method of transportation for sheep.

arknor · 27 Jan 2010 at 23:42

han_solo said:
I'd personally be p*ssed if someone 'borrowed' some of the ideas/tech i developed using a lot of time and money... and then there's the legal cost and hassle of bringing them to court... like someone mentioned, it's only fair to get these companies to pay what should have been payed in the first place.

the problem is they think there patent covers all memory types hence them claiming they owned patents on ram they didnt even create.

ill just go patent the "wire" then claim any type of pcb is infringing on my patent :rolleyes:

chaparral · 28 Jan 2010 at 00:50

Dated 11th July 2008

Rambus sues Nvidia

Mass memory-controller patent infringement alleged

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

11th July 2008 09:15 GMT

Litigation-loving Rambus has targeted Nvidia with a complaint that alleges the graphics chip specialist has used its memory controller tech without asking.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday with the US District Court for Northern California, claimed Nvidia's memory controllers for single data rate memory, DDR, DDR 2, DDR 3, GDDR and GDDR 3 all use, without permission, technology detailed in 17 Rambus patents.

The memory controllers that have Rambus so worked up are to be found in Nvidia's chipsets and graphics chips.

The company said it had spent the last six years trying to sell Nvidia a licence for the technology, but the GPU maker had consistently rejected its overtures. Enough is enough, it said, so now it instead wants Nvidia's allegedly offending products to be banned from sale. It also wants to be awarded unspecified cash damages.

Nvidia hasn't yet commented on the matter, but we expect it to reject Rambus' allegations, maybe file a countersuit and eventually, after both parties see their legal fees, to settle out of court - the customary conclusion to actions of this kind...

The case comes a week after Nvidia said it will have to pay out $150-200m to cover the cost of "significant quantities" of duff laptop chipsets and GPUs

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/11/rambus_sues_nvidia/