Ruling against Rambus highlights tactics

In a U.S. District Court patent ruling against Rambus, the judge highlighted some of the company's aggressive tactics for targeting and suing memory chip manufacturers.

On Friday, Judge Sue L. Robinson, in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, ruled that Rambus' patent suit against Micron Technology is "unenforceable," citing "spoliation," defined as the "destruction or alteration of evidence." This occurs when a party has "intentionally or negligently breached its duty to preserve potentially discoverable evidence," Judge Robinson wrote in her opinion.

As a result, 12 Rambus patents are not enforceable against Micron, the largest U.S. manufacturer of memory chips.

Shares of Los Altos, Calif.-based Rambus, which licenses technology for high-speed memory architectures, plunged almost 40 percent, to $11.42 in afternoon trading Friday.

In the opinion, Judge Robinson also cited Rambus' tactics for aggressively suing companies. One September 29, 1999 e-mail quoted in the opinion said that a consensus had been reached by Rambus on the "need to sue a dram company to set an example" and that Rambus should publicize the patents and the suits to "put all dram/controller companies that use sdram/ddr...on notice." (SDRAM stands for Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory; DDR stands for Double Data Rate.)

Robinson also declared in the opinion that "in light of Rambus' litigation conduct, the very integrity of the litigation process has been impugned...(and) that the appropriate sanction for the conduct of record is to declare the patents in suit unenforceable against Micron."

Micron had been a target of Rambus, along with other companies including Hitachi, Hynix, and Samsung. "We are pleased with the Delaware Court's ruling that the 12 patents Rambus asserted against Micron in the Delaware case are unenforceable," said Rod Lewis, Micron's Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, in a statement. "We believe that the decision is applicable to other pending cases, and we are reviewing the ruling to determine its potential impact," he said.

"Micron believes that the Delaware Court's ruling applies to the remaining patents in (a separate) California case and expects to file a motion with the California Court seeking a ruling of unenforceability based on the Delaware Court's decision," Micron said.

Rambus disagreed with the ruling. "We respectfully, but strongly, disagree with this opinion, and at the appropriate juncture plan to appeal," said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus.

"This opinion is highly inconsistent with the findings of the Court in the Northern District of California which looked at the same conduct and found there was nothing improper with our document retention practices. We are confident in the strength of our position and will continue to vigorously pursue fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions," Rambus said.

[anonie--2008]

Huh? This story says nothing about what exactly Rambus did that resulted in "Spoilation". I don't understand just what Rambus did?

Marty Net

[Anon E Mus]

I've read the ruling and the judge was incredibly creative with the law. Seems like she flipped a coin and copied and pasted Micron's brief. Some points:

- Spoliation requires 'willful intent' to destroy evidence; no evidence of 'willful intent' to destroy evidence cited in the ruling. No sworn testimony, not even evidence of a single prejudicial missing document.

- If evidence was destroyed, Micron must prove prejudice; none evident.

- The judge's most creative act was ordering the patents unenforceable: a 'full monty'.

- This ruling will be reversed on appeal (as have 4 previous rulings by the EDVA and FTC).

- Rambus is thriving and will eventually get paid for its IP protected by over 500 patented inventions, but this misguided ruling may delay justice another 2 years or so.

- So it goes.

[Lerianis]

Rambus will not get paid for anything, because these are unenforceable patents, that Rambus waited to enforce them until everyone and anyone was using their technology and methods.
You have to start suing IMMEDIATELY when you find out that someone is using your technology otherwise you lose the ability to enforce them by the way the law is written. Rambus needs to learn this fact.

[Wei_Zhu]

I love this ruling, having followed the case for a few years. Rambus's tactics are shady and they are effectively trying to choke the whole DRAM industry by planting their IPs during standardization process . As a lesson, I hope all standardization (not just DRAM) would adopt a loyalty free policy or at least limit loyalty period to be less than 4 years. That goes for blue ray, HDMI, etc.

[vanwahlgren]

I think rambus activities almost border on illegal. I wish the judge had made a judgement against the lawyer..

[npaulson]

funny that this judge chides rambus for being sue-happy when micron is the one who filed this suit...micron hand-picked this judge to get the very ruling you saw her make...what a great system of justice in deleware!

[contentcreator--2008]

If you wiped RAMBUS out of the picture, I think the industry would still be doing the same things at the same time. That makes RAMBUS a parasite, not an innovator. The patent system is supposed to reward and spur substantial innovations, not people who try to erect a minefield for incremental progress.

Back in the day, you had to suitably impress the king to get a "letters patent" and there's still some merit to that.

[npaulson]

funny how the us patent office disagrees with your "expert opinion" and recently upheld one of rambus' patents that was challenged

[contentcreator--2008]

And your point is? It's not like they were ruling on the question as I phrased it.

And yes, thanks, I'm generally considered "skilled in the art"

[clamenza]

npaulson is either a Rambus employee or dim as the other paulson. The patent office has almost no respectability in the software industry because of all the ridiculous patents they grant. This is not really the issue in this case, but then again, whether the patents are valid are virtually extraneous to this case.

[edlee19]

This legal opinion from Judge Robinson is a threat to all patent owners, not just Rambus. According to Judge Robinson, a patent owner is a mind reader who is capable of determining that future patent litigation will happen rather than might happen, and this clairvoyant knowledge of that future patent litigation due to the refusal of potential licensees to license triggers a duty to preserve documents before litigation has even begun.

[contentcreator--2008]

Rambus's business model is based on litigation, so it's hardly a surprise.

[edlee19]

This ruling from Judge Robinson is a hand waving argument analogous to saying that because you failed to anticipate that squatters might live in your house and threw out a candy wrapper that might have been relevant to a future lawsuit that you lose the right to enforce your property rights.

[Lerianis]

No, it isn't. It is analogous to someone waiting for 15 years, to sue someone for 10 cents worth of damage to their home, and saying that they should have compounded damages because 'they didn't notice' the damage.

Rambus is totally on the wrong side of this, and I am happy that a judge FINALLY realized that Rambus is an out of control company and put the smack down on them.

[sparrowhyperion]

Personally, I think the whole notion of a patent system needs to be looked at. All they do is stifle development and waste billions of dollars every year on overpriced lawyers. Fine, you invewnt something, you should get credit. Patents and companies remind me of the annoying kids we all grew up with who got mad because they lost at a game and took all their toys home in a huff. If their were no patents, then you would see a huge increase in the creativity of inventors because they wouldn't have to be worried about some guy in Pismo Beach suing him because he had a patent on a rubber hose or something dumb like that. The only people that Patents make really rich are lawyers.

[npaulson]

a patent is intellectual property, no different than any other property you may own...what would be the incentive to invent anything in your fairy tale world?

[Lerianis]

The inventive to invent is not only to get money for it. In a PROPER society, people invent for the sole pleasure of inventing. Do you think that the person who made the first airplane, WAAAAAAAY before the Wright Brothers, expected to get paid for his making of it? Heck no!
He was inventing SOLELY FOR THE PLEASURE OF INVENTING. Now, he did make paintings as well to supplement his income, but that was in a totally different vein.

[regulator1956]

People invent for the pleasure of society? Oh please.

You're saying IBM spends billions on R&D to benefit all?

Edison & Westinghouse did it for the money. Enjoy your A/C current.

[ElMartino1]

And rightfully so. I'm tired of hearing about these Rambus assbags. It's high time they just ****** off forever.

[fdunn3]

Amen to that.