I only know Rambus invented RDRAM. Besides that, which companies or parties
invented the rest of different kinds of memory? I remember back to late
90's, RDRAM was hot when they came out and had Intel's endorsement, but
RAMBUS want to charge a lot on this technology, so the majority of memory
manufactures chose the slower and inferior DDR RAM as their main stream
products and the market eventually phased out the superior but more
expensive RDRAM.
DDR DRAM is by no means inferior to Rambus' DRDRAM and in some respects is
superior. DRDRAM was/is a low pin-count high bandwidth solution and
Rambus' main invention was the interface to the memory chips - IOW had
little to do with the memory array itself. Basically DRDRAM uses a
packetized serial communication channel which increased latency somewhat
over a bus type interface. We'll probably never know what it's full
potential or downsides in a PC were, since Intel's implementations made
modest use of the paging strategies available. The low pin count makes it
attractive for things like consumer devices like game boxes.
As for the patents on traditional DRAM, they probably number in the
hundreds if not thousands. Many of them are "traded" through
cross-licensing agreements between the necessarily large companies which
actually own the fabs and make the chips. This highlights a flaw in the IP
business model: that IP companies don't currently have to acquire any of
the hundreds/thousands of patents which their inventions depend on - IOW IP
is essentially a parasitic activity and most people cringe at the word
parasite.
The product died but the company did not. Recently an US judge ruled that
Hynix's DDR/DDR2 products did infringe RAMBUS's patents (I am not sure
Rambus has won the case or the judge just ruled that they can proceed to
sue) while similar law suits were tossed out in Europe.
I believe there was a summary judgement on 11 counts and there are still 30
or so infringements which will go to jury trial. Whether the summary
judgements can be appealed I don't know but I'd think the outcome of any
jury trial is bound to be. <sigh>There could be no end to this and more
money is going to go into the pockets of parasitic lawyers than is
decent... not to mention the pump 'n' dump stock traders.
Anyway Rambus began
a new round of law suits, now they added smaller companies which manufacture
DDR or DDR2 in their list. It seems to imply DDR did use some inventions of
RDRAM. My second question is that if DDR is a cheap imitation or reverse
engineered product from RDRAM.
Rambus' patent portfolio is simply a web of deceit fabricated by lawyers
who know how to work a deficient patent system. From an initial filing in
1990, there is a complex (unfathomable ?) tree of abandonments,
continuations, divisions and extensions - basically they want it both ways:
they want the dating of the patents to go back to the early 90s but they
also want them refreshed so that they don't expire too soon.
There used to be a rule of patents such that you could not get a patent
which consisted of combining two existing inventions - one primary example
of this was that the guy who invented the pencil with the rubber tip eraser
on the end could not get a patent on his invention. This "rule" seems to
be largely ignored now - dunno if it was ever officially retracted.
Many of the Rambus claims are simply that: use of standard, obvious, even
trivial mechanisms, like count-down registers, as applied to a memory
interface. As I understand it, things like DLLs, and DDR signalling are
hazy areas - similar mechanisms have been used as common practice in the
industry so any ruling can be argued ad nauseum. A remark from a judge who
ruled in Rambus' favor at the Infineon appeal is an interesting reflection
on their corporate behavior: "While such actions impeach Rambus's business
ethics....." IOW legally, and under IMO flawed patent rulings, they were
in the right but they are nevertheless scum.
Apparently Geoff Tate worked for AMD for 10 years, on the x86 and 29000
processors, before he founded Rambus so one has to wonder how much his
"inventions" really might belong to AMD - usually employee agreements
specify quite clearly that any inventions made while in employment, and
related to the corporation's business, belong to the corporation. Did his
ideas come to him in a dream?... after he left AMD? Did AMD drop the ball
here?
One related question is that if US and Europe have totally opposite outcomes
of the law suits, who will give? Does it mean Rambus can only collect the
royalty on the memory chips sold in US?
I'm not sure where the European patent office now stands - I recall reading
a while back that the patent offices of the individual countries were
fighting attempts by the European central bureaucracy to establish a
pan-European patent office. There were also wild disagreements on patent
policies between the various countries which was also a stumbling block to
establishing policies for any centralized decision making on patent
application processing.
Things are in a mess there too and I don't expect any ruling to be final
for years... but if the outcomes are different then I believe that what you
say is essentially true... that Rambus would only be able to collect where
they had approvals and successful court rulings. That could, of course,
lead to retaliations and trade disputes.
