Now, Hyundai sues Rambus

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.