Rambus vs Micron Rambus' legal tussle with Micron has been put back to late October while the memory technology developer's case against Infineon drags on.

Trial judge Robert Payne has to decide whether Rambus' SDRAM patents can be enforced now that the patent infringement allegations Rambus made against Infineon have been thrown out of court. Infineon subsequently filed a request to have Rambus' SDRAM patents rendered null and void.

Judge Payne's decision is unlikely to take place until next month at the earliest, to allow both sides to prepare submissions for the hearing.

The Rambus/Micron case was due to begin on 31 May, but has now been re-scheduled to 29 October to await Judge Payne's ruling. If he does dismiss Rambus' patents, Micron's own case will clearly be considerably strengthened. Micron's lawyers will almost certainly seek a pre-trial ruling that will declare Rambus' patents unenforceable in this instance too.

Micron is also expected to file a pre-trial request that, like the Infineon case, the remit of Rambus' patents be limited to memory attached to a multiplexed bus. That same restriction, set in Judge Payne's Markman ruling, was central to Infineon's successful defence.

Micron's memory products that allegedly infringe Rambus' patents operate over three parallel buses, as per JEDEC's SDRAM spec., not a single, multiplexed bus. ®

Related Story

Infineon damages slashed