Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/11/22/judge_postpones_hynix_rambus_patent/

Judge postpones Hynix Rambus patent suit

Pending Infineon outcome

By James Watson

Posted in Channel, 22nd November 2001 15:54 GMT

A US District Court has postponed a patent infringement lawsuit filed by embattled memory-maker Hynix against Rambus.

The court indicated that Hynix's case may be postponed indefinitely pending resolution of Rambus' appeal to the US Federal Circuit regarding its case against Infineon, as the two cases cover mutual territory.

In May, a similar case involving Micron was delayed until October so that a resolution with the Infineon lawsuit could be found. In September Rambus requested the case be delayed until 2003.

Rambus is currently appealing a number of rulings in the Federal Circuit, which it says have an, "erroneous jury instruction," and that the patent claim rulings are, "overly narrow, misconstrue Rambus' patents, and ignore well-settled law".

The memory designer has battled Infineon for a long time in US courts - mostly on the losing end. It originally bought 57 patent infringements against the German memory maker, which were all dismissed by the court in June.

Following that decision, the court found Rambus guilty of fraud regarding its means of filing patents for its high-speed memory technology. It awarded Infineon $3.5 million in punitive damages, which was later reduced to £350,000 due to Virginia state law restrictions on damages.

In August, the ruling was changed, declaring that Rambus was guilty on SDRAM, but not on DDR SDRAM, paving the way for a new round of legal bouts. In the same ruling, Rambus got caned with a $7.12 million fine that it had to pay Infineon for legal fees.

The saga continues. ®

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