Rambus sues Infineon

Infineon, the spun-off division of Siemens which makes and sells memory, has had a missive from lawyers at Rambus Ink, alleging infringement of patents the Mountain View firm claims it owns on double data rate (DDR) memory, synchronous memory, and memory controllers.

Infineon said today it will defend the claims vigorously.

Thanks to this Rambus Site for the link to the court docket.

According to Electronic Buyers' News, m'learned friends representing Rambus Ink issued the writ last week after negotiations between the two Dramurai™ broke down. The same newspaper reports that Infineon is contemplating retaliatory action, so ensuring that lawyers both in the US and Germany can buy the most up-to-date PCs for their kids this coming Yule.

The action is the latest move in a long campaign by Rambus to establish its rights over key elements of technology at the heart of the PC platform.

An Infineon representative at its headquarters said: "Rambus filed a claim in Virginia, US on August 8th. The claim relates to certain SDRAM and DDR patents. We have not had a chance to review these claims specifically, but intend to defend ourselves vigorously."

So far, Rambus has succeeded in persuading Oki, Hitachi and Toshiba of the wisdom of licensing these technologies, but Infineon is a big company and may not crumble quite as easily as the others.

If Infineon does decide to counter-sue Rambus, we have already prepared a handy guide, based on the previous Hitachi action, which lawyers may care to peruse here, and here.

There is now likely to be much stiffening of the sinews and summoning of the blood at other, large Dramurai, which have a vested interest in ensuring that the DDR technology does not come under Rambus' legal wings. ®

RegiStroid 666 It's like a diamond lane for your PC, accompanied by a car flying along at 25,000 miles an hour, is the message that greets anyone going to the Rambus site. Isn't it about time you changed it, you lot?

See Also

Drambuster fly against Rambus
Micron holds out in Rambus patent game
Hitachi capitulates to Rambus
Intel says Rambus-Tosh deal not final word
Toshiba DDR domino falls to Rambus
DDR memory gets Infineon, Samsung, AMD boost
Seven Dramurai dwindle as PC-133 hopes kindle
NEC, Hitachi to merge DRAM operations
Seven Dramurai ride two memory standards at once