Who owns patents of DRAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2 RAM?

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 03:50:24 GMT, "Ar Q" <ArthurQ283.TakeThisOut@hottmail.com> wrote:

 >I only know Rambus invented RDRAM. Besides that, which companies or parties
 >invented the rest of different kinds of memory? I remember back to late
 >90's, RDRAM was hot when they came out and had Intel's endorsement, but
 >RAMBUS want to charge a lot on this technology, so the majority of memory
 >manufactures chose the slower and inferior DDR RAM as their main stream
 >products and the market eventually phased out the superior but more
 >expensive RDRAM.

DDR DRAM is by no means inferior to Rambus' DRDRAM and in some respects is
superior. DRDRAM was/is a low pin-count high bandwidth solution and
Rambus' main invention was the interface to the memory chips - IOW had
little to do with the memory array itself. Basically DRDRAM uses a
packetized serial communication channel which increased latency somewhat
over a bus type interface. We'll probably never know what it's full
potential or downsides in a PC were, since Intel's implementations made
modest use of the paging strategies available. The low pin count makes it
attractive for things like consumer devices like game boxes.

As for the patents on traditional DRAM, they probably number in the
hundreds if not thousands. Many of them are "traded" through
cross-licensing agreements between the necessarily large companies which
actually own the fabs and make the chips. This highlights a flaw in the IP
business model: that IP companies don't currently have to acquire any of
the hundreds/thousands of patents which their inventions depend on - IOW IP
is essentially a parasitic activity and most people cringe at the word
parasite.

 >The product died but the company did not. Recently an US judge ruled that
 >Hynix's DDR/DDR2 products did infringe RAMBUS's patents (I am not sure
 >Rambus has won the case or the judge just ruled that they can proceed to
 >sue) while similar law suits were tossed out in Europe.

I believe there was a summary judgement on 11 counts and there are still 30
or so infringements which will go to jury trial. Whether the summary
judgements can be appealed I don't know but I'd think the outcome of any
jury trial is bound to be. <sigh>There could be no end to this and more
money is going to go into the pockets of parasitic lawyers than is
decent... not to mention the pump 'n' dump stock traders.

 > Anyway Rambus began
 >a new round of law suits, now they added smaller companies which manufacture
 >DDR or DDR2 in their list. It seems to imply DDR did use some inventions of
 >RDRAM. My second question is that if DDR is a cheap imitation or reverse
 >engineered product from RDRAM.

Rambus' patent portfolio is simply a web of deceit fabricated by lawyers
who know how to work a deficient patent system. From an initial filing in
1990, there is a complex (unfathomable ?) tree of abandonments,
continuations, divisions and extensions - basically they want it both ways:
they want the dating of the patents to go back to the early 90s but they
also want them refreshed so that they don't expire too soon.

There used to be a rule of patents such that you could not get a patent
which consisted of combining two existing inventions - one primary example
of this was that the guy who invented the pencil with the rubber tip eraser
on the end could not get a patent on his invention. This "rule" seems to
be largely ignored now - dunno if it was ever officially retracted.

Many of the Rambus claims are simply that: use of standard, obvious, even
trivial mechanisms, like count-down registers, as applied to a memory
interface. As I understand it, things like DLLs, and DDR signalling are
hazy areas - similar mechanisms have been used as common practice in the
industry so any ruling can be argued ad nauseum. A remark from a judge who
ruled in Rambus' favor at the Infineon appeal is an interesting reflection
on their corporate behavior: "While such actions impeach Rambus's business
ethics....." IOW legally, and under IMO flawed patent rulings, they were
in the right but they are nevertheless scum.

Apparently Geoff Tate worked for AMD for 10 years, on the x86 and 29000
processors, before he founded Rambus so one has to wonder how much his
"inventions" really might belong to AMD - usually employee agreements
specify quite clearly that any inventions made while in employment, and
related to the corporation's business, belong to the corporation. Did his
ideas come to him in a dream?... after he left AMD? Did AMD drop the ball
here?

 >One related question is that if US and Europe have totally opposite outcomes
 >of the law suits, who will give? Does it mean Rambus can only collect the
 >royalty on the memory chips sold in US?

I'm not sure where the European patent office now stands - I recall reading
a while back that the patent offices of the individual countries were
fighting attempts by the European central bureaucracy to establish a
pan-European patent office. There were also wild disagreements on patent
policies between the various countries which was also a stumbling block to
establishing policies for any centralized decision making on patent
application processing.

Things are in a mess there too and I don't expect any ruling to be final
for years... but if the outcomes are different then I believe that what you
say is essentially true... that Rambus would only be able to collect where
they had approvals and successful court rulings. That could, of course,
lead to retaliations and trade disputes.

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Rgds, George Macdonald<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Who owns patents of DRAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2 RAM? 

"Tony Hill" <hilla_nospam_20.TakeThisOut@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:bovov091pr86hdoepvsmkvk3mqbd14tlq0@4ax.com...
 >
 > It would be interesting seeing Rambus and Mosaid go at it, since
they
 > both claim to own patents covering the same things.

Tony, companies that both manufacture parts can swap patents so that
they can get on with their businesses, which is making and selling
parts.

Neither Rambus nor Mosaid make parts. They cannot swap patents with
companies that do make parts. The only way they can make money is by
either patent royalties, or by winning lawsuits enforcing royalties.

Reading between the lines, I sense that you feel that nobody should
have to pay royalties in order to make parts. Am I wrong on this?

An IP company (e.g. Rambus) would be derelict _not_ to take maximum
advantage of patent legalities, since that's the only way it can make
money, and the company's officers are legally required to work in
their stockholders' interest, not in the larger interest of society.
Corporations are not charities.

As you probably know, I'm not a Rambus fan. But at least I understand
why they do what they do.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 12:53:01 GMT, "Felger Carbon" <fmsfnf.RemoveThis@jfoops.net>
wrote:

<snip>

 >
 >Neither Rambus nor Mosaid make parts. They cannot swap patents with
 >companies that do make parts. The only way they can make money is by
 >either patent royalties, or by winning lawsuits enforcing royalties.
 >
 >Reading between the lines, I sense that you feel that nobody should
 >have to pay royalties in order to make parts. Am I wrong on this?
 >
 >An IP company (e.g. Rambus) would be derelict _not_ to take maximum
 >advantage of patent legalities, since that's the only way it can make
 >money, and the company's officers are legally required to work in
 >their stockholders' interest, not in the larger interest of society.
 >Corporations are not charities.
 >

The discrepancy between theory and practice in patent law sometimes
seems large.

In theory, patent law should make it possible for investors and
innovators to reap the rewards of risk-taking and ingenuity.

Defensible intellectual property is essential to raising venture
capital. In that sense, patents do seem to work, at least sometimes.

At other times, the rewards seem to go to the sharpsters and the
lawyers. That's just life, I guess.

RM<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 07:22:57 -0500, George Macdonald
<fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:

 >business model: that IP companies don't currently have to acquire any of
 >the hundreds/thousands of patents which their inventions depend on - IOW IP
 >is essentially a parasitic activity and most people cringe at the word
 >parasite.

While Rambus is being a scumbag about how they do it, I don't quite
agree that IP is a essentially a parasitic activity. People should
reap just rewards for their creativity. The problem here I see it is
instead of protecting people's right to be rewarded, the current
system simply work for corporations. Companies being companies must
produce profits, in some unethical cases, it involves playing the
system to obtain IP rights that shouldn't had been theirs.


 >There used to be a rule of patents such that you could not get a patent
 >which consisted of combining two existing inventions - one primary example
 >of this was that the guy who invented the pencil with the rubber tip eraser
 >on the end could not get a patent on his invention. This "rule" seems to
 >be largely ignored now - dunno if it was ever officially retracted.

It might never had existed? As far as I know, combining two inventions
is a creative & innovative step especially if it wasn't obvious to
everybody in that industry before you did it. Sure everybody might say
it's obvious we can add an eraser to the end of a pencil now that it's
invented, so why didn't everybody do it before?

My take is, if nobody did it before you filed the patent, then it
should be patentable. Not doing it does not mean not patenting though,
if everybody did it thus nobody bothered to patent it, obviously it
shouldn't be patentable. Which is basically the problem with Rambus,
everybody did it, but only they went and (unrightly) got the patent.

 >Apparently Geoff Tate worked for AMD for 10 years, on the x86 and 29000
 >processors, before he founded Rambus so one has to wonder how much his
 >"inventions" really might belong to AMD - usually employee agreements
 >specify quite clearly that any inventions made while in employment, and
 >related to the corporation's business, belong to the corporation. Did his
 >ideas come to him in a dream?... after he left AMD? Did AMD drop the ball
 >here?

Or they might be waiting for Geoff to get all the monies before sueing
him for it :p

p.s. I'm reading up on these stuff lately to see if I can get a patent
on push buttons like those hundred odd pieces on your keyboard, your
door bell, your remote, your ... :ppPp
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 >> Stay informed about: Who owns patents of DRAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2 RAM? 

 > My take is, if nobody did it before you filed the patent, then it
 > should be patentable. Not doing it does not mean not patenting though,
 > if everybody did it thus nobody bothered to patent it, obviously it
 > shouldn't be patentable. Which is basically the problem with Rambus,
 > everybody did it, but only they went and (unrightly) got the patent.
 >

This is what troubles me. I think all parties came to the same table and
established an industrial standard, but no one was in charge to register the
patents for the standard. So Rambus said, Ha, I will take it since no one
wants it.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Who owns patents of DRAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2 RAM? 

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 18:31:54 +0000, Ar Q wrote:

 >
  >> My take is, if nobody did it before you filed the patent, then it
  >> should be patentable. Not doing it does not mean not patenting though,
  >> if everybody did it thus nobody bothered to patent it, obviously it
  >> shouldn't be patentable. Which is basically the problem with Rambus,
  >> everybody did it, but only they went and (unrightly) got the patent.
  >>
 >
 > This is what troubles me. I think all parties came to the same table and
 > established an industrial standard, but no one was in charge to register the
 > patents for the standard. So Rambus said, Ha, I will take it since no one
 > wants it.

Who woulda thunk you could get a patent for a counter?

No, as has been said before in this thread, there are plenty patents on
DRAM and DDR. DRAM manufacturers trade patent portfolios so they can stay
in business. Rambus, Shambus, and Scambus don't have any reason to
"trade", so all they needed was a key patent. ...any patent. ...no mater
how lame.

--
Keith<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Who owns patents of DRAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2 RAM? 

Ar Q wrote:
  >>My take is, if nobody did it before you filed the patent, then it
  >>should be patentable. Not doing it does not mean not patenting though,
  >>if everybody did it thus nobody bothered to patent it, obviously it
  >>shouldn't be patentable. Which is basically the problem with Rambus,
  >>everybody did it, but only they went and (unrightly) got the patent.
  >>
 >
 >
 > This is what troubles me. I think all parties came to the same table and
 > established an industrial standard, but no one was in charge to register the
 > patents for the standard. So Rambus said, Ha, I will take it since no one
 > wants it.

There was also the issue of Rambus's membership in an industrial
consortium called JEDEC which set all of the standards for everything
from EDO RAM to the current DDR2. One of the requirements of JEDEC
membership is that if you want to sit in on all of the secret meetings
of the standards body, you have to reveal all of your own patents, and
tell your co-members whether any of the work that the industry group is
working on infringe on any of your own patents and warn them about it.
Rambus never revealed whether any of the work JEDEC was working on had
any infringement potential on their patents. It's been generally
speculated that the reason Rambus kept quiet during JEDEC meetings was
because they did want to charge royalties on the standards that
eventually came out, so it could make income from it.

An even less flattering speculation was that Rambus kept quiet because
it really had no patents that infringed anything JEDEC was working on,
but it wanted to sit in on the meetings anyways, so that it could modify
its very general patents to include material that was being worked on
inside JEDEC secretly.

  Yousuf Khan<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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"Ar Q" <ArthurQ283.DeleteThis@hottmail.com> wrote :

 > Who owns patents of DRAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2 RAM?

Rambus they patenten everything and your dog


Pozdrawiam.
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On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 17:22:35 GMT, a?n?g?e?l@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com
(The little lost angel) wrote:

 >On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 07:22:57 -0500, George Macdonald
 ><fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:
 >
  >>business model: that IP companies don't currently have to acquire any of
  >>the hundreds/thousands of patents which their inventions depend on - IOW IP
  >>is essentially a parasitic activity and most people cringe at the word
  >>parasite.
 >
 >While Rambus is being a scumbag about how they do it, I don't quite
 >agree that IP is a essentially a parasitic activity. People should
 >reap just rewards for their creativity. The problem here I see it is
 >instead of protecting people's right to be rewarded, the current
 >system simply work for corporations. Companies being companies must
 >produce profits, in some unethical cases, it involves playing the
 >system to obtain IP rights that shouldn't had been theirs.

If an inventor does not have access to the multiple patents required to
work in concert with, and prove that his device works, he has no basis for
anyone to believe his enhancement to the base device works. As an extreme
case, he/she then has the option of building their own fab or convincing a
foundry to do it and finding the funding to back all this up and one way or
another, is going to have to pay for the dependent IP. If I, as a mfr,
owned that dependent IP, I'd want to be "fairly compensated" [Rambus
favorite phrase] for the use of it... and not on a per device royalty
basis.

If, as in the case of Mosaid, some of the dependent IP is owned by a
different IP-only company then should Rambus have to pay, or trade with,
Mosaid for that IP? We then have the possibility of IP companies ganging
up on mfrs with a combined portfolio - legal?... I dunno but certainly
challengable. The model *is* flawed!

It's also more than "how they do it" - it's also a case of what they did...
and what the patent office allowed them to do.

In the case of Mosaid, they had worked for a number of years as a contract
company for design of circuits -- someone who posts occasionally in this
group works/worked for Mosaid. What the ownership of any resulting IP was
at the end of any design project I don't know but they must have been
fairly compensated for that design work; possibly they sold themselves
cheap to get a foot in the door. Now, in the past 18months or so, Mosaid
laid off a fair portion of their engineering staff and has decided to
follow Rambus in suing memory mfrs for patent infringement largely based on
that contract work.

  >>There used to be a rule of patents such that you could not get a patent
  >>which consisted of combining two existing inventions - one primary example
  >>of this was that the guy who invented the pencil with the rubber tip eraser
  >>on the end could not get a patent on his invention. This "rule" seems to
  >>be largely ignored now - dunno if it was ever officially retracted.
 >
 >It might never had existed? As far as I know, combining two inventions
 >is a creative & innovative step especially if it wasn't obvious to
 >everybody in that industry before you did it. Sure everybody might say
 >it's obvious we can add an eraser to the end of a pencil now that it's
 >invented, so why didn't everybody do it before?

Huh? Oh it *did* exist and is quoted as a classic example of
patentability. If it's an obvious "invention" how can you know that nobody
else has "invented" it and been using it independently for years.

 >My take is, if nobody did it before you filed the patent, then it
 >should be patentable. Not doing it does not mean not patenting though,
 >if everybody did it thus nobody bothered to patent it, obviously it
 >shouldn't be patentable. Which is basically the problem with Rambus,
 >everybody did it, but only they went and (unrightly) got the patent.

A patent has to be original and non-obvious.

  >>Apparently Geoff Tate worked for AMD for 10 years, on the x86 and 29000
  >>processors, before he founded Rambus so one has to wonder how much his
  >>"inventions" really might belong to AMD - usually employee agreements
  >>specify quite clearly that any inventions made while in employment, and
  >>related to the corporation's business, belong to the corporation. Did his
  >>ideas come to him in a dream?... after he left AMD? Did AMD drop the ball
  >>here?
 >
 >Or they might be waiting for Geoff to get all the monies before sueing
 >him for it :p

I suggest you take a look at RMBS insider trading.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 00:53:28 -0500, George Macdonald
<fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:

 >Huh? Oh it *did* exist and is quoted as a classic example of
 >patentability. If it's an obvious "invention" how can you know that nobody
 >else has "invented" it and been using it independently for years.

You mean the pencil+eraser existed before the patent or ?

 >A patent has to be original and non-obvious.

Anything is obvious after it's done the first time no? I think the
best gauge of obvious would simply be whether at least a reasonable
number of persons have done the same thing for that particular purpose
in that particular industrial segment prior to the disclosure.


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 >> Stay informed about: Who owns patents of DRAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR RAM, DDR2 RAM? 

In article <41fe4f1c.248688765.RemoveThis@news.singnet.com.sg>, a?n?g?e?
l.RemoveThis@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com says...
 > On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 00:53:28 -0500, George Macdonald
 > <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:
 >
  > >Huh? Oh it *did* exist and is quoted as a classic example of
  > >patentability. If it's an obvious "invention" how can you know that nobody
  > >else has "invented" it and been using it independently for years.
 >
 > You mean the pencil+eraser existed before the patent or ?

The pencil existed and the eraser existed. The function of either
didn't change when they were combined into one unit, thus combining
them was deemed to be "obvious to one skilled in the art" and thus not
patentable.

  > >A patent has to be original and non-obvious.
 >
 > Anything is obvious after it's done the first time no? I think the
 > best gauge of obvious would simply be whether at least a reasonable
 > number of persons have done the same thing for that particular purpose
 > in that particular industrial segment prior to the disclosure.

The phrase is "obvious to one skilled in the art". It is not
"obvious" if one sees it and then says "man that's so obvious, I wish
I'd thought of it". "Obvious" has a legal definition and isn't at all
straight-forward. ...which is only part of the problem.

--
Keith<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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Keith R. Williams <krw.RemoveThis@att.bizzzz> wrote:
 > In article <41fe4f1c.248688765.RemoveThis@news.singnet.com.sg>, a?n?g?e?
 > l.RemoveThis@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com says...
  >> Anything is obvious after it's done the first time no? I think
  >> the best gauge of obvious would simply be whether at least
  >> a reasonable number of persons have done the same thing for
  >> that particular purpose in that particular industrial segment
  >> prior to the disclosure.
 >
 > The phrase is "obvious to one skilled in the art". It is not
 > "obvious" if one sees it and then says "man that's so obvious,
 > I wish I'd thought of it". "Obvious" has a legal definition
 > and isn't at all straight-forward. ...which is only part of
 > the problem.

I think L'Angel has a good point, multiple independant
discovery (invention) is a valid indicator of "obvious
to one skilled in the art". The converse, however, isn't
necessarily true.

-- Robert<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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In article <7zsLd.21357$wi2.10956@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com>,
redelm.TakeThisOut@ev1.net.invalid says...
 > Keith R. Williams <krw.TakeThisOut@att.bizzzz> wrote:
  > > In article <41fe4f1c.248688765.TakeThisOut@news.singnet.com.sg>, a?n?g?e?
  > > l.TakeThisOut@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com says...
   > >> Anything is obvious after it's done the first time no? I think
   > >> the best gauge of obvious would simply be whether at least
   > >> a reasonable number of persons have done the same thing for
   > >> that particular purpose in that particular industrial segment
   > >> prior to the disclosure.
  > >
  > > The phrase is "obvious to one skilled in the art". It is not
  > > "obvious" if one sees it and then says "man that's so obvious,
  > > I wish I'd thought of it". "Obvious" has a legal definition
  > > and isn't at all straight-forward. ...which is only part of
  > > the problem.
 >
 > I think L'Angel has a good point, multiple independant
 > discovery (invention) is a valid indicator of "obvious
 > to one skilled in the art". The converse, however, isn't
 > necessarily true.

That's where the problem comes in. Multiple invention doesn't
necessarily make something "obvious", at least under the law as it
stands. Prior art does show that an invention isn't novel (another
requirement) though. Rambus' "inventions" are easily shown to have
prior art. AFAIC, the real problem with Rambus' actions is in their
use of the "submarine patent".

--
Keith<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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