Rambus still around, sues NVIDIA for patent infringement
By Nilay Patel 
posted Jul 11th 2008 2:33AM
posted Jul 11th 2008 2:33AM
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
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!
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.
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
ugh? really? Another reason to avoid the PS3.
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.
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.
if only there were a "Douche" symbol, like a {D}, I'm sure Nilay{D} would have used that.
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....
The funny thing is...out of that giant list only two of them are registered trademarks: Rambus and RDRAM
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.
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.
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.
Following in the RIAA's footsteps...if you can't make money...sue people.
Rambus can screw themselves. They obviously have not learned their lesson the first time.
patent trolling ftw !
go go gadget rambus
will rambus win?
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.
'Cos thats totally relevant =/
LoL
you go have fun with your rambus, while the real men have hard drives.
fill my cache, rofl, why didn't i think of that
Yeahh, now she can't wait to "engage in RDRAMing" again
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.
I agree. RDRAM is like hell on Earth.
NVIDIA just got Rambused (R) up the arse
Capital N?
I always saw it with a lowercase n and a capital V
QUICK! AMD-ATI produce while big N is busy with court issues !!!
=] Crossfire = awesomeness
This is the EXACT comment I was going to type. Time for ATI to rise to the occasion!
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.
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.
Rambus = fail. Some of these court cases are just ridiculous, and wouldn't Rambus need to sue a lot more companies?
Wonder if they have Roger Ramjet as their mascot?
I know Rambus would win eventually in the end !
HHmmm.... maybe nVidea should sue Rambus for using their faulty patents that caused their chips to overheat??
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.
IN B4 CRYSIS, wait actually i haven't seen that meme so much in the past week.
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!
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*
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.
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.
This is my war.
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.
Every company has similar trademark policies. Rambus is not any worse than for example Apple:
http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html
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.
...
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).
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 :)
In that they wrere both an equally bad value?
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...
"Your license to speed"? Speed is a dangerous drug, I just can't support this company.
Rambus invented the technologies in question. Now found valid in a court of law. Which means they are not patent trolls (by definition). Many years ago Rambus show the manufacturers their technology under non-disclosure agreements. Rambus was then invited to join JEDEC, and were never allowed to present RDRAM for consideration. All they could do was sit there and watch the "Cartel" pick and choose pieces of their technology for the new standards. They have to litigate to protect their inventions. Rambus brought a Porsche to the table and then the Manufacturers stripped it down and gave us all Volkswagens. People and reporters need to learn to do research before spouting out lies.
um..they joined JEDEC, took the things that were going to be proposed in the standard, patented them, then sued all the companies in JEDEC saying "patent infringement" so yes, they ARE patent trolls
Would someone (or group of people) just plunk down the $850 million to buy a 51% stake and shut this company down? ... okay perhaps you need more than 51%, but you get the point. These $250M suits add up over time.
I'd laugh my ass off if Nvidia ended up owning that 51% =P
"Rule #4 - Avoid Verbs:
Since a trademark is not a verb, they should not be used as such. For example, one should not "Rambus-ize" or engage in "RDRAMing"."
Sounds like they are RDRAMing stuff down our throats, don't you think?
Rambus seems to have a lot of commenters on their PR Payroll.
So they are PR trolls AND Patent trolls?
Rambus is garbage. Rambus (backed by Intel) tried to cram ultra-expensive RDRAM down the public's throats even though most of their products (PC600, PC700) were slower than those already offered. I've no respect for this company.
it's apparent that many hope that Rambus get rammed by a bus.