Rambus sues Nvidia
Mass memory-controller patent infringement alleged
Litigation-loving Rambus has targeted Nvidia with a complaint that alleges the graphics chip specialist has used its memory controller tech without asking.
The lawsuit, filed yesterday with the US District Court for Northern California, claimed Nvidia's memory controllers for single data rate memory, DDR, DDR 2, DDR 3, GDDR and GDDR 3 all use, without permission, technology detailed in 17 Rambus patents.
The memory controllers that have Rambus so worked up are to be found in Nvidia's chipsets and graphics chips.
The company said it had spent the last six years trying to sell Nvidia a licence for the technology, but the GPU maker had consistently rejected its overtures. Enough is enough, it said, so now it instead wants Nvidia's allegedly offending products to be banned from sale. It also wants to be awarded unspecified cash damages.
Nvidia hasn't yet commented on the matter, but we expect it to reject Rambus' allegations, maybe file a countersuit and eventually, after both parties see their legal fees, to settle out of court - the customary conclusion to actions of this kind...
The case comes a week after Nvidia said it will have to pay out $150-200m to cover the cost of "significant quantities" of duff laptop chipsets and GPUs.
Related Review
Nvidia GeForce GTX 280
COMMENTS
@RMBS32
Pity the Reg doesn't have a little green symbol for astroturf...
@RMBS32
What, it should be 'Nvidia sues Rambus'?
Sorry, 'Rambus soothes Nvidia'?
No?
YOU ALL ARE MORONS
YOU think you understand Rambus and the litigation and their role in the industry, but everyone one of you has made factually incorrect statements and are doing nothing more than displaying your ignorance and bias on these matters. If you care to educate yourself go to the Rambus message board on www.investorvillage.com. Get a clue.
And to the author of this snide crap piece, YOU ARE NO JOURNALIST that is clear from your blatent bias in your headline. Absolutely DUMB.
NVIDIA is becoming as stupid as Sony
Guess my next video card will be some version from the Rambus Corp. They seem to have a pretty good record in these lawsuits; definitely plenty of practice.
Valid IP
IIRC, Rambus has some legitimate patents for some tech they invented, not some stupid over-broad idea, nor something they bought from another company's fire-sale. (Those are the usual sources of discontent towards "patent trolls")
What turns Rambus from aggrieved patent holders into ignoble bastards, is that they deliberately concealed these patents from JEDEC, even though they were JEDEC members.
So when JEDEC set the new standards for DDR, they were under the impression that all the tech in that spec was patent-free. Only months or years later, after *everybody* was making chips with "their" patented bits, did Rambus start suing.
In fact, this is just a new variation on another time-honoured patent-troll scam: The Submarine Patent.
