Friday, November 7th 2008
Rambus Files Complaint Against NVIDIA
Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced it has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) requesting the commencement of an investigation pertaining to NVIDIA products. The complaint seeks an exclusion order barring the importation, sale for importation, or sale after importation of products that infringe nine Rambus patents from the Ware and Barth families of patents. The accused products include NVIDIA products that incorporate DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, GDDR, GDDR2, and GDDR3 memory controllers, including graphics processors, and media and communications processors.
The complaint names NVIDIA as a proposed respondent, as well as companies whose products incorporate accused NVIDIA products and are imported into the United States. These respondents include: Asustek Computer Inc. and Asus Computer International, BFG Technologies, Biostar Microtech and Biostar Microtech International Corp., Diablotek Inc., EVGA Corp., G.B.T. Inc. and Giga-Byte Technology Co., Hewlett-Packard, MSI Computer Corp. and Micro-Star International Co., Palit Multimedia Inc. and Palit Microsystems Ltd., Pine Technology Holdings, and Sparkle Computer Co.
"We believe this action is necessary given NVIDIA's continued willful infringement of our patents," said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. "Rambus engineers and scientists have made tremendous contributions to the industry, and we need to protect our patented inventions on behalf of our shareholders and in fairness to our paying licensees."
The ITC is expected to decide whether to initiate an investigation under this complaint within 30 days. In a separate action, Rambus filed a patent infringement suit against NVIDIA in July 2008. Additional information is available at investor.rambus.com in the Litigation Update section.
Source:
Rambus
The complaint names NVIDIA as a proposed respondent, as well as companies whose products incorporate accused NVIDIA products and are imported into the United States. These respondents include: Asustek Computer Inc. and Asus Computer International, BFG Technologies, Biostar Microtech and Biostar Microtech International Corp., Diablotek Inc., EVGA Corp., G.B.T. Inc. and Giga-Byte Technology Co., Hewlett-Packard, MSI Computer Corp. and Micro-Star International Co., Palit Multimedia Inc. and Palit Microsystems Ltd., Pine Technology Holdings, and Sparkle Computer Co.
"We believe this action is necessary given NVIDIA's continued willful infringement of our patents," said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. "Rambus engineers and scientists have made tremendous contributions to the industry, and we need to protect our patented inventions on behalf of our shareholders and in fairness to our paying licensees."
The ITC is expected to decide whether to initiate an investigation under this complaint within 30 days. In a separate action, Rambus filed a patent infringement suit against NVIDIA in July 2008. Additional information is available at investor.rambus.com in the Litigation Update section.
21 Comments on Rambus Files Complaint Against NVIDIA
i mean they shouldnt be attacking the companies that use NV parts when the board makers only know how to make the boards but not the Glue logic.
NV probably violated patents on mem controllers when Rambus had those designs first.
www.rambus.com/us/news/press_releases/2001/010917.html
Just trying to dig a bit into it, it looks as though AMD and Intel have already settled up to use Rambus' patented intellectual property. Looking up Nvidia, Rambus, and licensing only brings up mention of the suit....
Should sell like hotcakes!! :rockout:
Anyway, if Nvidia infringed on a patent that Rambus holds they should be called on the carpet for it, just like anyone else. While I do not necesssarily agree with the way the patent system in the US works, litigation is the only recourse a company has to protect their IP.
It's as if I decided to create a new plug, with 6 pins but that obviously still has nothing but +, - and ground, 2 of each (pointless yeah). Then after they give me that patent I decide to fill a lawsuit for anyone creating an adapter to plug their products into them. Anyone can come up to how to make an adapter, they don't need to spy my designs. IMO in that case I should have the right to sue anyone using or creating my plug and not paying royalties, but not the adapter.
Translating to Rambus/Nvidia, Rambus should be able to fill a lawsuit against Nvidia if Nvidia didn't pay royalties for DDR memory usage, as that's what they use, but never for the memory controler as that is their own design.
"your memory architecture has a 10% likeness to my memory architecture... and we both use the word "memory", THIEF!"
nVidia should just let this go to court, then drag it out with their deep-pocketed lawyers until RAMBUS can't afford to operate anymore.
someone needs to swat this mosquito.
It really does look like NV is taking hit after hit though, it's starting to get ridiculous how much ground they've lost in the past few months.
If you let Rambus lawyers go the logical next step: they will sue you for royalties on any documents you write using software that RUNS in their memory, since it is using it. :shadedshu
And video/media players. And media content.
And games.
And pay per view for web content downloaded into memory.
And BIOS firmware for "writing zeros" to the memory at boot.
Can you imagine the lawsuit. "No, you cant write zeros to our memory without a license". Where will it end?