Rambus Files Patent Infringement Suit Against NVIDIA

[malware]

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced it has filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against NVIDIA Corporation for patent infringement.


The lawsuit alleges that a number of NVIDIA products with memory controllers for SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, and GDDR3 SDRAM infringe 17 Rambus patents. The accused products in the complaint include chipsets, graphics processors, media communication processors, multimedia applications processors and other products from at least six NVIDIA product lines. Rambus is seeking injunctive relief barring the infringement, contributory infringement, and inducement to infringe the Rambus patents, as well as monetary damages.

"For more than six years, we have diligently attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with NVIDIA, but our good faith efforts have been to no avail," said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. "Graphics and multimedia products require leading-edge memory performance, and as NVIDIA advances its product portfolio, it infringes more and more of our patents. We are left with no other recourse than litigation to protect and seek fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions. Nevertheless, we hope to continue discussions with NVIDIA to reach a negotiated settlement."

Further information will be made available at http://investor.rambus.com in the Litigation Update section.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[alexp999]

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies specializing in high-speed memory architectures, today announced it has filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against NVIDIA Corporation for patent infringement.


The lawsuit alleges that a number of NVIDIA products with memory controllers for SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, and GDDR3 SDRAM infringe 17 Rambus patents. The accused products in the complaint include chipsets, graphics processors, media communication processors, multimedia applications processors and other products from at least six NVIDIA product lines. Rambus is seeking injunctive relief barring the infringement, contributory infringement, and inducement to infringe the Rambus patents, as well as monetary damages.

“For more than six years, we have diligently attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with NVIDIA, but our good faith efforts have been to no avail,” said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. “Graphics and multimedia products require leading-edge memory performance, and as NVIDIA advances its product portfolio, it infringes more and more of our patents. We are left with no other recourse than litigation to protect and seek fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions. Nevertheless, we hope to continue discussions with NVIDIA to reach a negotiated settlement.”

Further information will be made available at http://investor.rambus.com in the Litigation Update section.

Source: BusinessWire

lol! life just seems to be getting better for nvidia atm. What if due to this nvidia have to pull their latest 2xx range just as the 4870X2 comes out!!!

 

[qwerty_lesh]

why would they only be seeking compensation from nvidia?
wouldnt all of the affiliate companies be at fault to, because afiak their selling display cards.. ect ect with the same technology, and what about other companies like motherboard manufactures and say.. amd/ati? (now dont flame me ppl, im just curious as to why)
or do all chipset manufactures aside from nvidia currently pay royalties to said rambus whenever they have a similar or existing patented technology which would fall under these 17 or moreso infringments??

 

[alexp999]

why would they only be seeking compensation from nvidia?
wouldnt all of the affiliate companies be at fault to, because afiak their selling display cards.. ect ect with the same technology, and what about other companies like motherboard manufactures and say.. ati? (now dont flame me ppl, im just curious as to why)
or do all chipset manufactures aside from nvidia currently pay royalties to said rambus whenever they have a similar or existing patented technology which would fall under these 17 or moreso infringments??

It says rambus where trying to set up a license aggreement, i.e royalties. I assume everyone but nvidia have been paying royalties.

 

[btarunr]

lol Just when NV was trying to please investors by shooting out info about GT300, etc.

 

[yogurt_21]

yeah when it rains ir pours, good info though was about to grab some nv stock, maybe I'll wait a bit.

 

[newtekie1]

I think Rambus has completely left the technology field and entered the "sue random people to try to get money from them" field.

 

[mab1376]

Why wont rambus just die??

 

[1c3d0g]

Rambus does have some interesting technology, but they're increasingly acting like a patent troll. Obviously that's not a good thing for their business in the long run...

 

[WarEagleAU]

so because they are suing your beloved Nvidia they are now in the randomly suing people business, Newtekie1? That doesnt make much sense. However, it is what it is.

I was gonna ask how come AMD/ATI wasnt hit by this but Im assuming they licensed the technology? Only thing I can think ok. Speaking of which, how the hell does Rambus even get into GDDR memory?

 

[cooler]

AMD already did and they had to pay Rambus 75 million back in 2006

http://www.crn.com/it-channel/175800680

 

[Darkrealms]

Thanks for the info cooler. Seems pretty steep for an almost dead company. $75m for 5 years? Then its renewable and only for ATI not AMD?
Apparently someone needs to buy rambus to kill them . . .

Their architecture sucked when it was in use in my opinion (dimm,spacer,dimm,spacer, no spacers no workie). Guess it’s alright for servers.

 

[Chris_Ramseyer]

It is easy to look at the company and judge them this way but the truth is, Rambus owns quite a bit of the IP used for memory today. Companies have been stealing the tech for years, some know it and others don't. The problem really has to do with the way IP is handled in the US and for the world really. The entire system needs to be reworked.

 

[Megasty]

Damn, NV just can't catch a break. Rambus certainly picked a fine time to sue them. They'll get their money like they did with AMD but I really am starting to feel sorry for NV, especially when I cash in on their stock in a year or two. Hopefully I didn't buy enough to become a part-owner

 

[newtekie1]

so because they are suing your beloved Nvidia they are now in the randomly suing people business, Newtekie1?

I really don't care who they are sueing, and get off the "beloved nVidia" thing, just because you are an ATi fanboy and I have said negative things about ATi that doesn't mean I am an nVidia fanboy, I've said plenty of negative things about nVidia too. You just don't tend to care as much about those because nVidia bashing is perfectly fine with you, but the instant someone says something bad about ATi, you label them an nVidia fanboy.

Now, as for my comment. It is based on the fact that I haven't seen Rambus come out with any new technology in decades, but they just keep sueing any random person that uses DRAM every few months.

What was the last technology they came up with? XDR DRAM? Yeah, that really caught on, the only reason it even still exists is because the PS3 uses it, it failed in the PC world. What came before that? RD-RAM? How long ago was that? They haven't come up with anything at all, they make the majority of their money off sueing random people that use DRAM. Whenever they start to run low on money, they just sue another DRAM users.

It seems like RAMBUS is in the news for being in court at least once a year, and they haven't been in the news for any actual contribution to the industry in years.

Edit: Yep, a quick look at their history shows that since 2004 they have been in court at least once a year dealing with Patent crap. Sueing Hynix, Samsung, Elpida, Infineon etc. Basically anyone that produces or uses DRAM.

 

[breakfromyou]

anybody check RDRAM prices lately? $150 for 256mb? WTF

RDRAM was such a joke. I laughed about it then, because it made no sense why anybody would want it over DDR SDRAM. The heat alone is pretty ridiculous.

 

[candle_86]

ITs nvidia they will simply buy rambus and let everyone pay them royalities its how they do bussiness.

 

[Darkrealms]

ITs nvidia they will simply buy rambus and let everyone pay them royalities its how they do bussiness.

I don't even think Nvidia would charge that much for use of it!