Hynix infringed 50 Rambus patent claims - judge

The US District Court of Northern California has rejected all but one of six requests for summary judgements made by Hynix in its long-running legal dispute with Rambus.

Judge Ronald Whyte also ruled in favour of a seventh summary judgement motion, this time requested by Rambus itself.

The upshot is that of the 59 claims that Hynix was alleged by Rambus to have infringed, the South Korean memory maker has been found to have a case to answer in all but nine. Hynix had asked the court to rule that its products had infringed none of 59 claims, which are contained in 15 Rambus patents.

The nine claims, contained in four of the 15 Rambus patents and which centre on the use of a "second external clock signal", will be removed from the action. Simply, Hynix did not infringe these claims.

Rambus' own motion had requested summary judgement on the alleged infringement of some 40 claims. Judge Whyte rejected the motion as regards 11 of these claims, stating their use of the term "read request" needs further investigation. However, he ruled in Rambus' favour for the remaining 29 claims, all of which are among the 50 Rambus claims that survived Hynix's summary judgment motions on non-infringement and validity.

And so the case will go to trial, with the date 21 March 2005 set for the opening of the hearing. According to Rambus, the remaining 11 patent infringement and validity issues will be explored first, along with Hynix's spoliation claim.

Once dealt with, the trial will re-commence in June and focus on various non-patent defences and counterclaims asserted by Hynix, Rambus said. ®

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