Just days before memory chip designer Rambus is scheduled to announce its
quarterly results, a California district court has scrambled the numbers.
Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose on Monday tossed out the $306.5 million in
damages awarded to the Los Altos, Calif.-based Rambus in its patent
infringement suit against Hynix Semiconductor.
While upholding the infringement decision by the jury, Whyte ruled the damages were excessive.
The judge gave Rambus the option of accepting a $133.6 million award or face
another trial for damages.
Rambus spokesperson Linda Ashmore said the company was evaluating the
decision.
Ashmore said while Rambus has no comment as yet, she indicated the
matter is likely to be mentioned in the company’s Wednesday quarterly
results.
The April jury verdict
found that the Korean-based Hynix infringed on 10 Rambus patents involving
SDRAM, DDR SDRAM and DDR2 memory products.
During the damages phase of the long running patent battle between Rambus
and Hynix, Rambus expert witness David J. Teece testified the $306.5 million
in damages sought by the company was justified since they were based on
“revolutionary technologies.”
“Although there may have been revolutionary aspect to some of Rambus’
patents (e.g., the use of a narrow multiplexed bus), no evidence established
a basis for including any particular amount because of the alleged
revolutionary technology,” Whyte wrote in his decision.
The bitter legal dispute began in 1996 when Intel decided to use Rambus
memory products.
DRAM manufacturers contended Rambus’ technology was too
expensive and adopted the DDR2 chip as a new standard.
Rambus claimed the DDR2 used patented Rambus technology.
The courtroom fight began four years later when Hynix sought a declaratory
judgment that 11 Rambus patents were invalid.
Rambus countersued and, at
one point, the case involved 59 patent claims from 14 Rambus products.
In addition to the Hynix case, Rambus filed infringement lawsuits against
Micron, Samsung and Nanya. Rambus is also suing the three in separate
actions involving more advanced memory products.
In addition, Rambus has a pending antitrust case against Micron, Hynix and
Samsung, claiming the three were part of an alleged boycott against Rambus
products.
