ncmark wrote:

Anyone remember all the old fiasco with Rambus RAM? I got bored and for some reason got to reading articles about it. Sounds like it was recently settled, but the company isn't dead like it probably should be.

I think they are still alive due to the residuals of their licensing scheme.

As for recently settled, I seem to recall reading something about this last year I think, it was some kind of patent infringement suit based on the original DDR1 spec if I remember correctly.

I think their initial patents were finally invalidated, ending their ability to sue every RAM manufactured out there for supposed infringements

ncmark wrote:

I think their initial patents were finally invalidated, ending their ability to sue every RAM manufactured out there for supposed infringements

That could have been what I read, it does seem they are somehow hanging on just by the residual license agreements back in the day.

Back in the late 90's - early 2000's a friend and I made a constant slew of jokes about the legal firm of RAMBUS, RAMBUS, & RAMBUS. The fun just never stopped with them. We actually worked with a guy who was called in for a deposition on the matter of their onslaught of lawsuits. He was a PC BIOS engineer for Phoenix (at least I think it was Phoenix) and he was witness to how they were conducting their business. RAMBUS would send a lawyer and an engineer to any open tech forum and record and write down every single detail. Example, VIA would setup a meeting in some hotel ballroom to discuss their latest and greatest chipset, copes of the white papers would be handed out, and questions would be taken. The RAMBUS guys recorded everything, and then applied patents to everything they heard about in said discussion. Then filed suit against everybody at those meetings for patent infringement.

That took balls of steel. Then to make matters worse, they managed to get lost income on many of they wins and settlements which in turn went to fund more suits against other companies with bigger pockets. Then of course the final insult was their only real product was about the slowest, and most overpriced memory ever to come out on the consumer market. I really hate RAMBUS.

All that pretty much jives with what I have read. It's amazing they got away with it and that it has drug on for as long as it has.

Kind of interesting - I went on to read about the i820 chipset and what a fiasco that whole thing was. Seems like every time any one company tries to control too much it blows up in their faces.

Kodai wrote:

Back in the late 90's - early 2000's a friend and I made a constant slew of jokes about the legal firm of RAMBUS, RAMBUS, & RAMBUS. The fun just never stopped with them. We actually worked with a guy who was called in for a deposition on the matter of their onslaught of lawsuits. He was a PC BIOS engineer for Phoenix (at least I think it was Phoenix) and he was witness to how they were conducting their business. RAMBUS would send a lawyer and an engineer to any open tech forum and record and write down every single detail. Example, VIA would setup a meeting in some hotel ballroom to discuss their latest and greatest chipset, copes of the white papers would be handed out, and questions would be taken. The RAMBUS guys recorded everything, and then applied patents to everything they heard about in said discussion. Then filed suit against everybody at those meetings for patent infringement.

That took balls of steel. Then to make matters worse, they managed to get lost income on many of they wins and settlements which in turn went to fund more suits against other companies with bigger pockets. Then of course the final insult was their only real product was about the slowest, and most overpriced memory ever to come out on the consumer market. I really hate RAMBUS.

Holy shit, these guys were total scum!

RAMBus Inc. is nothing more than a patent troll. They don't actually make anything of use. Now they are moving into LED lighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKaVxv12K_c

Note the company's name on the datasheet at 3:04.

From just six days ago: 'Nanya and US’ Rambus settle on patent dispute'

Epic comments on the subject at the legendary Red Hill site:

SDRAM and Rambus RAM

The amazing i820 saga

I had forgotten about the legal nonsense they pulled; and yeah I think "scum" is a good word for such patent trolls.

leileilol: HA!

As far as them still being in business - that isn't surprising to me; remember they provide all the memory (or at least licence the IP behind the memory) in a lot of embedded devices and game consoles, and I don't mean the trolling behind DDR - RDRAM and XDRAM appear in a variety of things (PlayStation uses them, for example); that's gotta contribute to the bottom line on some level.

I am remember now why when I went to build some later P3 systems I went with motherboards that had the apollo pro chipset

If Intel hadn't gotten involved, RAMBUS would have died out before it ever really got started. Intel had to back them to the hilt in order to save their investment. RAMBUS wouldn't have had the resources for all those early lawsuits without a heavy hitter bankrolling them.

Yea they are still around and to top it off that even now they are a problem for AMD and Nvidia. They hold so many of the IP for memory controllers it is not funy and they are moving into surveillance as well. I hope scum companies like this get sunk when the bottom finally falls out of the financial system.

nforce4max wrote:

Yea they are still around and to top it off that even now they are a problem for AMD and Nvidia. They hold so many of the IP for memory controllers it is not funy and they are moving into surveillance as well. I hope scum companies like this get sunk when the bottom finally falls out of the financial system.

Surveillance? 😵

And I thought the nVidia lawsuit was settled ++ the FTC basically labeled them a troll and restricted the amount they could both charge for royalties and what they could seek to recover as damages as a result. At least that's the "last I heard" about the (haha) lawfirm of Rambus, Rambus, & Rambus (sorry but that's just too good to ignore!).

obobskivich wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

Yea they are still around and to top it off that even now they are a problem for AMD and Nvidia. They hold so many of the IP for memory controllers it is not funy and they are moving into surveillance as well. I hope scum companies like this get sunk when the bottom finally falls out of the financial system.

Surveillance? 😵

And I thought the nVidia lawsuit was settled ++ the FTC basically labeled them a troll and restricted the amount they could both charge for royalties and what they could seek to recover as damages as a result. At least that's the "last I heard" about the (haha) lawfirm of Rambus, Rambus, & Rambus (sorry but that's just too good to ignore!).

Yes, supposedly they developed a new type of camera that doubles up as a motion sensor. As for their trolling the system they might be one of the main reasons why there is no new blood getting into the gpu market besides everything else.