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  • gobaers - Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - link

    Sorry for my ignorance on the topic, but does Rambus actually provide valuable tech to the memory manufacturers, or are they more of a troll? I remember RD-RAM being completely not worth it, and being forced into it by some intel chipsets a decade ago; I'm still harboring some negative feelings toward that company.

    However, if they provide something that moves the tech forward, they should absolutely be compensated for their research.
  • Ryan Smith - Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - link

    In short, DDR wouldn't be possible without RAMBUS's patents. So in a way, yes.
  • emn13 - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    That doesn't mean they provide value - just that they took a potentially "obvious" technical step and registered a patent for it in secret. Then, when another party comes up with a similar solution independently, they can sue. In that scenario, the patent holder hasn't provided any value; to the contrary, they discourage tech development due to the risks they cause.

    That scenario is unfortunately exactly the scenario most encouraged by the patent system because if you can wait to sue until the infringing party is thoroughly dependent on the patent, you have them over a barrel. By contrast, if you tried to actually provide value by seeking licensees in advance - to save them the cost of independently developing the tech - then the potential licensee might decide it's not worth it and implement an alternative that's just different enough not to infringe.

    Given the facts of the case here, where now everyone wanting to produce standard DRAM needs a rambus license, and given the fact they didn't have one initially, it looks like rambus in this instance is clearly a patent troll. Of course, that doesn't mean they always are; and it's a little hard to blame them for doing exactly what the patent system encourages.
  • 3DoubleD - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    The thing is, based on how patents work, Rambus actually provided value by filing the patent in the first place. The reason nations grant patents in the first place is to exchange the details of a novel invention for the right to exclusively own that invention for a period of time. Basically, for giving everyone access to your great idea (putting it in the public domain) you are granted a monopoly on that idea for a period of time. It encourages invention by guaranteeing that no one will copy your product the minute you release it and it guarantees that marching on of innovation.

    As far what patents were meant to do, the system is working perfectly: people are offering their ideas to the public domain. Motivation to actually use the patents should have been more prominently baked into the system. I also believe patents length should be shorter with a more robust extension system, meaning if it takes a decade (or more) to develop the technology to a marketable product, a company should receive a guaranteed minimum period of exclusivity starting at that point. Now if you don't make any appreciable effort to develop that product, then no extension should be awarded. I think that would solve the major too long/too short/patent troll problems with patents in one shot.

    The US congress just made some patent law revisions the other day, I still need to take a look at what the changes were. For some reason I doubt they were as straight forward as I suggest above.
  • HisDivineOrder - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    I think the initial consensus about Rambus was that they had been part of the committees that formed the basis of what DDR wound up being defined as. As a result, they secretly began patenting technologies they then convinced the others to use while not advising them that they were going to be able to claim ownership of said technologies at a later date and try to get a royalty for them.

    That is, Rambus said to them, "Hai guyz, I think we should do THIS!" with THIS! being a thing that they could then claim ownership over. They didn't tell their partners that they were going to be the gatekeepers of said technology when they helped steer them toward those patents.

    It should have come up somewhere along the way that, "Oh yeah, it is a great way to do things, but if you do, we're going to charge you a royalty for doing so." Instead, they waited until the spec was done and it was smacking the crap out of RDRAM and that's when they went, "Oh, remember that cool idea we sold you on..." to the entirety of the DDR making industry.
  • 0ldman79 - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    Honestly from what I remember of the situation Rambus was a part of the standards committee, either patented the ideas during the development of DDR or immediately before.

    Essentially Rambus intentionally screwed the entire memory industry and I hate to see crooked bastards like that get away with it, much less benefit from it.

    Could be I don't have all the facts, but it seems that anything discussed while building an open standard that turns out to be patented by one of those involved is just completely crooked.
  • cbf - Friday, December 13, 2013 - link

    The "they patented the standards we were talking about" story is Micron's version of events, which the US Appeals court didn't buy: http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/NSD/RMBS...

    Rambus says they asked to present their work to the JEDEC committee and were denied. They also say that virtually every major memory on the committee had in fact seen the technology Rambus was filing patents on under non-disclosure.

    In fact, DDR was specifically designed as an alternative to the RDRAM technology Rambus was pushing. The problem is that it turned out that DDR infringed on a handful of the Rambus RDRAM patents anyway (confirmed by multiple juries) -- much to the chagrin of the memory companies.

    Rambus' court setbacks had to do with some dumb, over aggressive document cleanup (done under advice of counsel) that two trial courts and an appeals court found were done in a time period when litigation could be "anticipated" (not commenced mind you). (Judge White in San Jose said no harm was done.) The irony is that Micron and Hynix apparently had no theory about how any hypothetical destroyed documents prejudiced their case. As best as I could read the arguments, they are claiming Rambus destroyed evidence of prior art. One wonders how Rambus could possibly have had the only copy of such prior-art evidence ..
  • A.Noid - Saturday, December 14, 2013 - link

    That is EXACTLY the way I remember it. They were or are part of JEDEC, and talked the committee into using the technology, and patented it just like you said. they are snakes of the worst type.
  • OCedHrt - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link

    According to cbf, Rambus was denied access to JDEC committee.
  • Kevin G - Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - link

    Almost by necessity some of Rambus' technologies will have to be used in future iterations of memory technology. The parallel topology used by SDR/DDR has pretty much reached its limits with DDR4, especially in terms of expansion (one DIMM per channel without buffers). A serial topology would allow for similar bandwidth (though not necessarily latency) as the parallel interface using fewer pins or more channels using a similar number.

    Rambus hasn't been idle since the Pentium 4 days either. They developed the XDR and XDR2 spec. The only major platform to use it was Cell which of course found its way into the Playstation 3. There other minor wins, notably in networking equipment where its high speed serial nature was a key advantage. Speaking of networking technology, Rambus has done some work in the Infiniband area.
  • Rather-A-Wally-Raleigh - Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - link

    "There other minor wins, notably in networking equipment where its high speed serial nature was a key advantage"

    Got a citation for that? Not that I'm calling you a liar, or anything. I'm aware of Infiniband using it, but I'm genuinely curious to see what manufacturers are putting it in which devices. I'm only accustomed to Adtran and Cisco equipment, and I'm not aware of any of their tech that uses it.

    All I can find so far are generic quotes about it being suitable for Infiniband, 10 GigE, and Cisco deciding NOT to use it. It would be really cool to see what kind of a difference their serial tech makes over parallel types.
  • jokeyrhyme - Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - link

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

    Some of their patents were actually filed after attending public JEDEC meetings. They basically patented features being discussed by their competitors at a standards meeting. Not cool.

    They did have some other patents of value, and the rest of JEDEC were specifically trying to avoid paying Rambus. So what Rambus did could have been viewed as retaliation, but either way it was a nasty situation.
  • cbf - Friday, December 13, 2013 - link

    That's a story Micron made up. In the end, Micron was unable to persuade the courts that's what happened (see my above post). There's ample evidence to show that Rambus was well along in developing its technology, independent of what was going on at JEDEC, and that most of the JEDEC participants knew what Rambus was doing (since Rambus was actively trying to sell its technology to the large memory manufacturers -- and showed much under non-disclosure).

    DDR was deliberately designed to avoid Rambus technology, but ended infringing on a handful of claims in the Rambus patents anyway.
  • KAlmquist - Saturday, December 14, 2013 - link

    Your link didn't work for me, but if you are referring to April 28, 2008 Appeals Court decision in Rambus v. Federal Trade Commission, it doesn't really contradict what jokeyrhyme wrote. In that case, the FTC conceded that what could have happened was as follows: The JEDEC requires its members to license patents required to implement JEDEC standards at reasonable rates. In order to get higher royalties for its patents, Rambus, in violation of JEDEC rules, withheld the knowledge that it held or was planning to obtain patents on the memory technology, thereby allowing Rambus to reveal the patents after the standard was issued and compel other companies to license Rambus patents at a rate higher than JEDEC would have allowed.

    The FTC lost because, according to the Court of Appeals, this type of patent ambush is legal (or at least doesn't violate any laws that the FTC has jurisdiction over). It would have been a different matter if the FTC had proved that the patented technology wouldn't have been included in the standard if it weren't for the deception on the part of Rambus.

    The Court also expressed skepticism about some of the factual determinations, but that didn't factor into the result. In particular, the Court doubted that the particular behavior described by jokeyrhyme--patenting features subsequently to discussing them at a standards meeting--was prohibited by JEDEC rules.
  • dgingeri - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    Rambus initially introduced the double data rate concept into the SDRAM memory standard under the guise of a free technology, knowing full well that they had a patent pending on it, and then sued all memory makers when they actually started using it. They cheated in getting everyone to use their technology and screwed them over claiming rights on it. We all pay more for memory because of the lawyer fees from this tactic.

    If they had said they had a patent pending on this from the very beginning they may have gotten some nice licensing deals, and possibly even more revenues overall, with no law suits. We'd all be paying less if they'd been honest.

    This is a perfect example on how NOT to run a company. The management at Rambus is just generally incompetent.
  • jdon - Friday, December 13, 2013 - link

    Greed and maliciousness != incompetence... "up to $280 million over the period of the 7 year agreement" sounds competently malicious, greedy, underhanded, and generally scum-baggy.
  • dgingeri - Friday, December 13, 2013 - link

    They could have made more money, not paying so much to their lawyers and court costs, if they had done things honestly. They lost money in doing things the way they did. That is incompetence. Malicious, underhanded, and scum-baggery is incompetence in the business world. Honest business owners and executives make money honestly all the time, providing needed services and products in exchange for a cost.

    To do things underhandedly always bears a cost. It's easier in some cases, but not as effective, and costs future business. It's only keeping the short run in mind, and disregarding the long term. That is complete incompetence in business.
  • Wolfpup - Monday, December 16, 2013 - link

    Unless there's something different going on that hasn't been presented in the past, they're worse than a typical troll, actively taking steps to get their tech into other products and then suing after it happened. I have NO idea why anyone settled with them as so far as I know it was open and shut, and no one owed Rambus anything.
  • nikdanjor - Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - link

    Yeah, the case against Rambus was so open and shut that Micron is paying $280 million to settle.

    There's an old saying that surely applies here: Money talks; bullshit walks.
  • Harry_Wild - Monday, December 23, 2013 - link

    If you were a RAMBUS shareholder back in 1997-2000 era and held this stock till now - no value at all! It had all the patents on SDRAM and made possible DDR series of memory! Rambus made a mistake based on an expert recommendation that they could shredded some documents that were technical that talked about relationship with other MMs in meetings. They use this; against Rambus in court to stop Rambus. It was called spoliation! Rambus spend like over 14 years in court trying to collect royalties from the MMs and spend around $400 million in litigatin expenses and collected close to the same amount in settlements. Management just picked the wrong outside litigators every 5 years! Rambus management at the beginning did not settle matter when some MMs offer a 2% royalty. They wanted 5% plus and got at the end around .25%!

    Very sad!
  • Kevin G - Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - link

    While Rambus' action through the court system have proven legal, they don't sit as ethical with me. The main thing is the lack of disclosure on Rambus part when they were a member of JEDEC about their upcoming patents. There is a reason why standards bodies exist and why they have rules. This whole fiasco has set the industry back due to legal tactics.
  • tjoynt - Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - link

    Rambus' litigation was still *ahem* "controversial" because they weren't upfront with the DDR SDRAM standards body or members about their patents when the memory standard was developed. They only started suing after the DDR standard was widely accepted and their own standard (RD-RAM) was less successful in the marketplace. Since they did actually do important research in the field, they're less patent trolls than patents a-holes. :P
  • Samus - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    I appreciate RAMBUS for their contributions to memory technology, but I generally classify a company as a patent troll if they don't make a product they own a patent for, and instead wait for their competitors to make it and expect them to license it.

    That'd be like me sitting on a patent for say, a shoe insole, and as soon as Nike makes it, I'll sue them for infringement. I could have instead approached shoe manufactured with my idea and either sold the patent or licensed the idea. In most cases, RAMBUS did neither.
  • CharonPDX - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    The trick is, RAMBUS *DID* come up with their own product, it was a failure. And they demanded royalties early on, it just took this long for those demands to work their way through the legal system.

    Yes, their "stay quiet" was slimy - but they certainly didn't start out as a patent troll.
  • TEAMSWITCHER - Sunday, December 15, 2013 - link

    Alright, time to set this crap straight. Rambus memory performed awful with the Intel Pentium 3 because the P3 could not take advantage of the extra speed. Moving the same Rambus RIMMS to a Pentium 4 motherboard provided a huge increase in performance, one that DDR memory took years to replicate (and not without using Rambus IP to make it happen.) Samsung was the only RAM maker to make RAMBUS RIMMS and the prices stayed high. eventually Intel gave up, and the industry has been saddled with DDR ever since.

    There is a reason that after all these years Rambus Inc. has finally won - they created great technology that an entire industry used. The fact that they had to spend million on legal fees to get the money they deserved is shameful. Rambus isn't a patent troll, they were victims on patent thieves. We need more companies like Rambus to shake up the industry - waiting on JEDEC to deliver advances in memory technology is miserably slow. Does the PC industry even care about performance anymore? It sure doesn't appear so.
  • tipoo - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    I wonder if XDR/XDR2 will ever be in a mass consumer electronics item again. Nvidia has their stacked DRAM for bandwidth improvements, I haven't heard much from AMD yet, any news on that? XDR2 in future GPUs would be interesting...Perhaps even APUs, as I think it has lower latency for the CPU than GDDR.
  • keahou - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    FWIW, the sordid story of the Industry collusion, Antitrust activity, FTC corruption, paid shills to corrupt your mind, and more was recoreded real time on Rambus.org. Enjoy the all time story of what really happened.
  • purerice - Thursday, December 12, 2013 - link

    A lot of confirmation bias here. People who don't like the patent system attack the unfolding of the Rambus patent saga.
    What I don't get is how RD lost to DDR if RD really was superior. iirc, the reason I never got RDRAM based rig was because they were more expensive but the ole memory fails now and then. To me it seems that they had the better product but inferior marketing and planning.

    In a way I wish this court decision had come years ago because if it had RAM manufacturers would have worked a lot faster in creating a better standard of RAM not dependent on Rambus patents. The 0.6% royalties are in reality much larger because if you have 5% net profit margin, 0.6% royalties take out 12% of your profit.
  • cbf - Friday, December 13, 2013 - link

    Because the memory manufacturers were trying to avoid paying Rambus royalties. DDR was an attempt to engineer around the Rambus patents, which failed in the end because it still infringed on some (but not all) of the claims in the Rambus patents. Some of what Rambus patented was just hard to avoid (like using a little bit of non-volatile memory to store the timing parameters for each stick of memory)

    There was nothing intrinsically more expensive about RDRAM (and especially not XDR) -- it's just that the memory companies didn't want to make it because they thought they wouldn't need to pay royalties on DDR.

    Indeed, the sad part is that XDR and its successors were better memory technologies than DDR, DDR2, etc.
  • Tanclearas - Saturday, December 14, 2013 - link

    While RDRAM did indeed have higher bandwidth, it also had significantly higher latency. The processors of the day were much more sensitive to latency than they were in need of higher bandwidth. So the higher cost coupled with zero to negative performance difference made RDRAM quite undesirable.

    As processor and cache speeds increased, and cache sizes increased, high latencies on memory could be masked and bandwidth became increasingly important. Basically RDRAM was ahead of its time.

    That's about all I can say that's nice about Rambus. I do believe their "business tactics" are about as slimy as can be.
  • XmppTextingBloodsport - Saturday, March 19, 2016 - link

    mmmm necro

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