Rambus attorney claimed that the Federal Circuit of the Appeals Court described Rambus' position when it ruled in January that Rambus was not obligated to disclose its synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) patent applications while a member of the industry JEDEC group drafting the SDRAM standard. The appellate court threw out a lower court jury verdict that had found Rambus committed fraud when it failed to disclose pending SDRAM patents.

However, in a lengthy hearing today, FTC counsel Sean Royall contended that the FTC administrative law judge was not bound by the appeals court decision, claiming that the antitrust charges against Rambus are separate from the Richmond, Va., federal district court trial that considered the fraud charges under Virginia state law. The stakes of the FTC's antitrust suit are high given that the agency's lawyers are asking that the Rambus synchronous memory patents pending at the time it was a member of the JEDEC SDRAM committee be declared unenforceable. Rambus has secured SDRAM and DDR licenses with many DRAM manufacturers and is suing Infineon Technologies, Hynix Semiconductor, and Micron Technology for refusing to submit to the licenses.

Rambus and the FTC are divided over the interpretation of the appellate court decision, which found that, under JEDEC rules, Rambus wasn't required to disclose its synchronous patents. The FTC's Royall said the court ruling "was incoherent" and based on the testimony of one industry witness, compared to a total of 18 industry witnesses who testified during the FTC trial that amended JEDEC rules did in fact require Rambus to disclose its pending patents.

Both parties claimed the FTC's ruling will have a tremendous impact on industry. The trial took 54 days with 11,000 pages of testimony and 1,900 documents. A total of 43 witnesses were called to testify, making the Rambus trial one of the most exhaustive proceedings ever conducted by the agency

By: DocMemory
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