More legal problems erupted for Rambus as Korea’s Hyundai said it had filed
a lawsuit in a Federal District Court in the United States asking the court to
certify that it does not owe Rambus any royalties for the use of its technology
in SDRAM memory chips.
The move comes less than 24 hours after Micron Technology filed an antitrust
lawsuit when it failed to reach a patent licensing agreement with Rambus.
Both firms are taking a huge risk, as Rambus has vowed not to license its
technology to any company that it defeats in a court of law. Like the Micron
case, Rambus and Hyundai started negotiations on a patent licensing agreement
after Rambus had notified the companies that their SDRAM chips violated Rambus’
patents. But the talks broke off abruptly after which the chipmaker filed its
lawsuit.
"We think certain patents owned by Rambus are invalid, unenforceable,
and not infringed by any Hyundai products," said a Hyundai Electronics vice
president Farhad Tabrizi. Rambus said it expects to prevail in the legal case
and be fairly compensated for the use of its intellectual property. Samsung
Electronics, the world's largest memory-chip maker, has been the main advocate
of the Rambus technology. Samsung says the designer's technology will account
for 40 per cent of its production by the end of next year.