Rambus must pay Infineon $7.12m

Rambus must pay Infineon $7.12 million in legal fees, the US District Court of Virginia ruled late last week.

That goes some way to making up to Infineon the loss of $3.5 million in damages, awarded by the jury after it won its claim that Rambus had committed fraud. That figure was later cut to just $350,000 to meet the restriction on such settlements imposed by Virginia State Law.

The post-trial hearing didn't all go Infineon's way, however. Rambus was able to have part of the jury's verdict that it committed fraud in its dealings with JEDEC, the semiconductor industry standards body. The Court ruled that Rambus didn't commit fraud when it allegedly hid its DDR SDRAM patents from JEDEC.

However, the verdict that Rambus did commit fraud with single data rate SDRAM by filing for patents on SDRAM technology without mentioning the fact to JEDEC. As a JEDEC SDRAM Panel member, it was obliged to declare the patents.

The upshot is that Rambus can't sue Infineon again for allegedly infringing the SDRAM patents mention in the case. That said, it can sue the German company for alleged infringement of its DDR patents.

It may do so. "Ultimately, we believe that Infineon needs to compensate us for the use of our patents," was the company's response. Judge Robert Payne ruled that Infineon hadn't infringed those patents, according to the scope of the case set in his Markman judgement. Rambus has always maintained that ruling was too narrow, and that if broadened, would show that Infineon's DDR products do infringe its patents.

In other words, the way is paved for future litigation, for which Rambus hailed the ruling a victory - just as Infineon has done, on the basis of the SDRAM ruling. ®

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