Those who find Rambus an "Evil, litigous company" are both misled and misinformed.
The timeline goes like this:
In 1988, or somewhere near then, the 2 founders of Rambus develop a technology that would allow memory to exceed 500mhz or beyond. In 1989 these same 2 founders begin visiting with the engineering teams at the big memory manufacturing houses, such as Infineon (then Siemens), Micron, Hynix (then Hyundai), Samsung and Mitsubishi. They all sign on with NDA's to review Rambus' technology with a possibility of manufacturing it in the future.
Rambus is eventually formed and has applied for patents to the technologies in question. Somewhere around the 1991 or 1992 timeframe, JEDEC begins work on "SDRAM". During the initial phases of JEDEC's work on SDRAM, people brought up Rambus' own technology. In fact, JEDEC itself is not opposed to licensing technology for future standardization provided they are offered RAND royalty rates (Reasonable and non-discriminatory).
In a notorious memo by Willie Meyer at Infineon, he went as far as to call Rambus a "deadly menace" to the computer industry because they already owned the technology that ALL pc's will be built around someday. Knowing that Rambus was a REAL THREAT to their livelyhood and could potentially cause them to lose control over the industry they manage, they decided to do one thing:
Steal their technology.
How? Easy! Invite them to JEDEC, never allow them to present their technology (public trial info documenting the fact that rambus was BARRED from presenting their technology during the SDRAM process while ALL OTHERS were allowed to present), and then use the fact that they were on the standards committee in future litigation.
But it wasn't that simple, you see.... Rambus had patent APPLICATIONS. At the time of all this JEDEC hoopla, it wasn't even LEGAL to divulge patent applications. Only awarded patents.
So JEDEC drew up this vague patent policy that Judge Randall Rader of the CAFC said had a "Staggering lack of details" and attempted to put the screws to rambus in court. (For what it's worth, Randall Raider is THE #1 patent authority in the nation, and serves on the federal circuit court).
So what's true and what's not?
Did Rambus steal anyone's technology? No. JEDEC stole it from Rambus. Everyone in JEDEC developing the SDRAM standard KNEW about Rambus' technology from the NDA's they signed with them back in the late 80's. It wasn't until 1992 that SDRAM became a "reality", and it used technology stolen from rambus.
If you can read (judging from these comments, it appears many of you can't), I suggest you read the testimony of the FTC trial that's currently ongoing:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9302/
It documents all these "facts" that so many of you get wrong.
Also, the CAFC verdict that overturned Judge Payne's virginia ruling of fraud:
http://rambus.org/Appeal/01-1449.html
Randall Rader makes the most interesting points, as he is THE #1 undisputed patent law authority in the united states.
By the way: Get used to rambus. The Rambus RASER cell is being used in PCI Express
Also a good chronology of what happened with Rambus is documented at the opening arguments for the Rambus vs. Infineon case, which is ultimately the case that the Supreme Court denied to hear because of Rader's verdict:
http://www.stocksandmoney.com/opening.htm
I know that most of you will simply refuse to believe fact, since a lot of you are young and were TAUGHT to hate Rambus because of all the smear campaigning done about them.
I personally don't see how ANY reasonable person can think Rambus is an "evil, litigous company" if you read all the facts and see how their property was blatantly stolen.
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