Rambus growls at Nvidia

Rottweiler off the leash again

By Andrew Thomas • Get more from this author

Posted in Channel, 11th December 2000 13:36 GMT

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Graphics behemoth Nvidia warns in its quarterly SEC form 10Q filing that it has been advised by Rambus it may be in breach of patents.

Nvidia's SEC filing says: "We have been advised by Rambus Inc. that it believes our products infringe certain patents owned by Rambus and requesting that we agree to certain licensing terms, including royalty payments. We believe the Rambus patents are invalid, not infringed and unenforceable.

"Although we currently are having discussions with Rambus regarding potential business alternatives to Rambus' proposed licensing terms, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to reach a satisfactory agreement with Rambus. If we are unable to do so, Rambus may sue us for patent infringement at any time."

Nvidia has in the past been subject to patent infringement suits with SGI and S3, both of which were settled and resulted in cross-licenses and, in the case of SGI, compensation payments too. Nvidia still has ongoing patent action against it from 3dfx.

It seems we're rapidly getting to the point that the list of high-tech companies not being sued by Rambus is shorter than the list of those that are. ®