Rambus still around, sues NVIDIA for patent infringement

Hey, any of you remember Rambus? That company that wanted to force RDRAM onto the market and basically sued everyone until it flamed out into oblivion in the early 2000s? Yeah, it's still around, has a massively stupid slogan, and it's suing NVIDIA for -- what else? -- patent infringement, claiming that NVIDIA products with SDRAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, and GDDR3 memory controllers violate some 17 different patents. Rambus says it's tried for six years to negotiate licensing terms with capital-N, but that it has "no other recourse than litigation" to get things sorted out. Valid or not, that's not good news for NVIDIA, whose stock price is struggling due to market pricing pressure and the news that perhaps all its 8400M and 8600M chips are faulty and will require repair or replacement at the cost of at least $250M. We'll see how this one goes -- now's a good a time as any to open that can of whoop-ass, guys.

Read - Rambus sues NVIDIA
Read - Incredibly douchebaggy "Rambus Trademark Guidelines" page we're linking just because it's so pretentiously awful

[collegekid13 @ Jul 11th 2008 2:46AM]

i'm sueing them for sueing nvida. and then i'm going to sue you for being alive. then i'm going to sue the sun for that sunburn 10 years back. ha i'll show them!

[dee @ Jul 11th 2008 2:46AM]

I remember Rambus, they made the RAM for the N64!

They also made the really expensive RAM for the first Pentium 4 mother boards.

They also make XDR which is used in Sony's PS3.

[deedeedee @ Jul 11th 2008 3:14AM]

My friend give me an rambus P4 mobo with 512mb rambus memory for free 3 years ago, I sold it on ebay for $350!! just a mobo and memory! I was shocked people were paying big bucks for that; I bought a dual core system with the money and still had $50 left haha

[Ordeith @ Jul 11th 2008 12:50PM]

ugh? really? Another reason to avoid the PS3.

[Darkest Daze @ Jul 11th 2008 2:48AM]

Hah, those trademark guidelines are great. The whole thing boils down to this one statement:

"The Rambus name is not only a trademark used to identify our technology, components and services, it also serves as our company name. When using the Rambus name as a reference to the company, Rambus may be used as a noun and no "®" symbol is needed. For example, in a press release, the following use would be proper:

"Today, Rambus announced a new generation of memory technology.""

In other words...please make sure to use our name as much as possible, so people out there think we're still a relevant tech company and not a patent trolling company.

[Darkest Daze @ Jul 11th 2008 2:57AM]

BTW Engadget, you're required to use an ® symbol after Rambus in your headline and article. Also, you didn't use the correct form of their technology names. Please refer to this chart from their guideline:

Proper Use Examples for Rambus Trademarks

* Rambus® technology
* Rambus® memory controller
* Rambus® DRAM

* RDRAM® technology
* RDRAM® device

* RaSer™ technology
* RaSer™ serial link technology
* RaSer™ cell

* XDR™ module
* XDR™ DRAM

I mean, come on, you posted the guidelines, but clearly didn't read the correct way to you them.

[Will H. @ Jul 11th 2008 3:53AM]

if only there were a "Douche" symbol, like a {D}, I'm sure Nilay{D} would have used that.

[Jamie M @ Jul 11th 2008 5:16AM]

No, it's a legal device insisted on by their trademark lawyers. Basically, if you have a trademark and you wish to avoid it becoming generic, you sent a letter correcting anyone who uses it incorrectly. This way, when it comes to court, the people suing you for invalidity of the trademark can't say "Well you didn't object to people using it in a generic fashion".

If Hoover, Linoleum or [sony] Walkman had used better lawyers and the odd stiff letter, they might still own their respective trademarks....

[A.C.E.R. @ Jul 11th 2008 5:24AM]

The funny thing is...out of that giant list only two of them are registered trademarks: Rambus and RDRAM

[Wwhat @ Jul 11th 2008 7:21AM]

I think you cannot enforce a copyright/trademark symbol when someone writes it in a non-commercial fashion, or when it's referred to by someone who is not part of a industry that is in competition with the product or is using the product in their own products.

[neofolklore @ Jul 11th 2008 8:05AM]

yeh for real Engadget, all you had to do was copy and paste! this proves engadget's writers didn't go through college or didn't write enough college papers.

[lunchbox99 @ Jul 11th 2008 6:13AM]

My goodness, that "Rambus Trademark Guidelines" page demonstrates what happens to a company when it is ruled by lawyers. It is clear that they are more concerned with litigation than technology these days. What a bunch of douchebags.

[Mark @ Jul 11th 2008 2:56AM]

Following in the RIAA's footsteps...if you can't make money...sue people.

[Razor @ Jul 11th 2008 3:13AM]

Rambus can screw themselves. They obviously have not learned their lesson the first time.

[nobody @ Jul 11th 2008 3:21AM]

patent trolling ftw !

[skulldriveshaft @ Jul 11th 2008 3:43AM]

go go gadget rambus

[jamax @ Jul 11th 2008 3:45AM]

will rambus win?

[warrrennnnn @ Jul 11th 2008 4:01AM]

Suck on this one, Rambus.

Hey, I so totally Rambus'd your mom last night. Yeah. My Rambus is huge. Like gigantic. And your mom was like "Give me more! Fill my cache! Oh yeahhhhhhhhh!"

Trademark that.

[ClarkyAC @ Jul 11th 2008 4:23AM]

'Cos thats totally relevant =/

[Cirian75 @ Jul 11th 2008 4:45AM]

LoL

[andres @ Jul 11th 2008 4:50AM]

you go have fun with your rambus, while the real men have hard drives.

[neofolklore @ Jul 11th 2008 8:05AM]

fill my cache, rofl, why didn't i think of that

[nova62400 @ Jul 11th 2008 2:38PM]

Yeahh, now she can't wait to "engage in RDRAMing" again

[Ridgecity @ Jul 11th 2008 4:08AM]

I own an early pentium 4 that uses rambus. 512MB using 2 RIMMs for $200 back in the day. Trying to upgrade require me to order an almost discontinued products one year later for $400, it was cheaper to buy a new pc.

[bartoron @ Jul 11th 2008 7:47AM]

I agree. RDRAM is like hell on Earth.

[KK @ Jul 18th 2008 7:52AM]

NVIDIA just got Rambused (R) up the arse

[Hellios @ Jul 11th 2008 4:21AM]

Capital N?
I always saw it with a lowercase n and a capital V

[Anthony @ Jul 11th 2008 4:26AM]

QUICK! AMD-ATI produce while big N is busy with court issues !!!

=] Crossfire = awesomeness

[SirWalksAlot @ Jul 11th 2008 8:26AM]

This is the EXACT comment I was going to type. Time for ATI to rise to the occasion!

[Jamie M @ Jul 11th 2008 5:12AM]

I've actually attended lectures by their legal team in Europe, and they are to some extent an ill-portrayed company. People don't realise that they did actually INVENT ram as we know it. They were originally just a couple of professors who sat down, saw that CPU speed was increasingly massively whilst RAM stayed the same. They therefore designed some of the very core technologies and ideas which are used in all RAM today. They were invited to JEDEC, who chose to adopt their technologies willingingly.

Their less honourable behaviour was when asked "Do you have patents over this technology?" They said "no comment". This is not a clear denial, and frankly the lawyers from the other members of the council should have been all over them, but were not, and so now we get the litigation.

[Daza @ Jul 11th 2008 9:12AM]

I think that Rambus are portrayed as money hungry patent trolls, but from what I've read they actually started the ball rolling on faster memory as you've mentioned. Their stuff was pretty expensive back in the day of 1.4GHz P4s, but I think it might have have had ECC as standard unlike SDRAM.

We probably have a lot to thank them for, but it's hard to give them credit for things when they just keep suing everyone. In a way it makes sense, their stock has tumbled from $150/each to $17.12/each at the moment.

[Mobius_1 @ Jul 11th 2008 5:26AM]

Rambus = fail. Some of these court cases are just ridiculous, and wouldn't Rambus need to sue a lot more companies?

[Gerry Lim @ Jul 11th 2008 5:30AM]

Wonder if they have Roger Ramjet as their mascot?

[Harry S @ Jul 11th 2008 6:17AM]

I know Rambus would win eventually in the end !

[T1 @ Jul 11th 2008 6:27AM]

HHmmm.... maybe nVidea should sue Rambus for using their faulty patents that caused their chips to overheat??

[KnucklesMcgill @ Jul 11th 2008 6:36AM]

I am typing on a Dell P4 Computer with 1 GB of Rambus right now ,it is over 8 years old ,has had zero issues outside normal use and is still BLAZING fast. It can and does do any modern task just this side of gaming. I don't know who should sue anybody, and Rambus memory was expensive...but it KICKED ASS.

[neofolklore @ Jul 11th 2008 8:07AM]

IN B4 CRYSIS, wait actually i haven't seen that meme so much in the past week.

[Dauthi @ Jul 11th 2008 9:06AM]

My HP bought from Walmart in '98-'99 works fine too, except for gaming. Imagine that. Must be that awesome Walmart-y sheen. Obviously that's the only reason why a computer would still be operating at optimal performance almost a decade later.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with taking proper care of it and removing any and all bloatware. Yeah.

Thanks HP and Walmart for giving me an awesome computer that could have done (some) gaming had it only had an actual video card. You're the best!

[Ordeith @ Jul 11th 2008 12:56PM]

DDR was 1/3 the cost and worked fine. Rambus + P4 = More marketshare for AMD at the time.

If AMD wasn't around we might still be using that Rambus junk *shudder*

[KnucklesMcgill @ Jul 11th 2008 6:49PM]

Dauthi ... your HP from Walmart is stripped down unless you upgraded it. It sucked ass then and it sucks more ass now! Want a gaming computer ?? Buy a F-ing XBucks. My original comment was intended to represent the fact that the Rambus memory has stood the technology time test as it is still fast today. The price was steep but it is a good product...you don't get Rambus or anything else cutting edge at Walmart. Thanks for your display of smart assedness I enjoyed it.

[pk de cville @ Jul 11th 2008 7:15AM]

Nilay,

Someone in the media is going to invest the time to educate themselves and then write a great expose series about the truth here. It will be easy to do because they'd only need to read transcripts of sworn testimony, trial and appelate decisions.

The story would include very unusual proceedings in the Federal Court in Richmond, VA, the FTC (what's new?), and the US DOJ Micron Amnesty Agreement.

It's absurd. There are no stones to turn 'cause it's all in the record!

Get your Pulitzer and expose the bastard liars who've been stealing Rambus IP for over 10 years.

[Rambus @ Jul 11th 2008 1:43PM]

This is my war.

[Wwhat @ Jul 11th 2008 7:08AM]

Someone should buy rambus and put every single employee on a ten year public toiletcleaning job and if they quit sue them for breach of contract.

[vagvoba @ Jul 11th 2008 7:15AM]

Every company has similar trademark policies. Rambus is not any worse than for example Apple:
http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html

[Wwhat @ Jul 11th 2008 7:25AM]

haha:

3. Publications, Seminars, and Conferences: You may use an Apple word mark in connection with book titles, magazines, periodicals, seminars, or conferences provided you comply with the following requirements:
..
b. The use reflects favorably on both Apple and Apple products or technology.
...

[Bobo @ Jul 11th 2008 7:25AM]

Even their guidelines show how out of touch with reality they are. They insist that it's not a noun and that it's not a verb, then they tell you that you can use it as a noun. 1) It's a name so it's a noun (I'd like to see Rambus have the gall to sue the writers of dictionaries), 2) They tell you that you're allowed to use their name and omit the (R) symbol when you're refering to the company, however when commenting in the public domain for the purpose of legitimately identifying the mark for comment they can't stop you anyhows. Paypal tried to pull that one off on paypalsucks.com and lost. People have the right to refer to a trademark when they're talking about it, and it doesn't require permission from the trade mark holder. Some companies are extremely arrogant in their belief that they can dictate to the public more than what they are entitled to enforce at law (trade mark being a creature of statute and not common law).

[Fed @ Jul 11th 2008 9:02AM]

I was on the RAMBUS bandwagon when P4's hit the market, rambus allowed me to do some nice overclocking on my old rig.

I will have fond memories of rambus right along side my memories of packard bell :)

[Ordeith @ Jul 11th 2008 12:58PM]

In that they wrere both an equally bad value?

[Numus @ Jul 11th 2008 12:27PM]

They Suck. the RDRAM in my Dell Dimension 8250 is the biggest pain in the A**... I have bought 2 different kinds and neither are the right "specs".. gotta love ddr and ddr2.. if you buy slower memory it all defaults to the slower.. with RDRAm if you buy something that isn't exactly the right spec for the motherboard it is rejected.. and it is expensive as HELL for the pc1066 i need...

[apread @ Jul 11th 2008 12:40PM]

"Your license to speed"? Speed is a dangerous drug, I just can't support this company.