Micron sues Rambus in antitrust action

US memory giant Micron has taken legal action against memory intellectual property giant Rambus, in a case which could mean geese get the shivers as their respective lawyers sharpen sheaves of quill pens.

A statement released by Micron, based in Boise, Idaho, said: "The suit asserts violations of the Federal antitrust laws, and also asserts invalidity, non-infringement, and non-enforceability of Rambus patents pursuant to a number of different bases."

Micron went out of its way to draw a line in the sand earlier in the year when several other memory manufacturers, the so-called Dramurai, decided to license patents on synchronous memory (SDRAM) and double data rate (DDR) memory from Rambus, based in Mountain View.

Dramurai that have settled with Rambus include Toshiba, Hitachi and OKI. Hitachi was being sued by Rambus and launched an antitrust suit against the firm, but that was later settled, probably because NEC is set to take over its memory business later in the year. NEC was involved in original Rambus specs.

The usual first move in this type of legal gavotte is for the party being sued to say something along the lines of "we will contest this suit vigorously". ®

See Also

Micron holds out in Rambus patent game
Drambuster fly against Rambus
How the hell… do I countersue Rambus?
Rambus no longer makes Intel's eyes twinkle