UP Patent Office Invalidates Major Rambus Patent
UP Patent Office Invalidates Major Rambus Patent
Posted 01/27/2012 at 2:57pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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Before smartphone patents took over the spotlight, everyone’s favorite patent troll was Rambus. The technology licensing firm has been using the so-called Barth patents for years to sue tech companies and extract licensing fees as a settlement. After invalidating two of the three Barth patents earlier this year, the U.S. Patent Office has now invalidated the third as well.
It was the Barth patents that Rambus used to win lawsuits against Nvidia, HP, and more. The technologies described in these patents pertained mostly to memory chip design, and were considered to be Rambus’ most valuable IP. Rambus pulled in $312.4 million in revenue last year on the strength of its patent portfolio. That amount is likely to drop in 2012.
Rambus can appeal the latest blow to its business, but a Patent Office examiner is unlikely to disagree with the appeals board that invalidated it. The company has other patents to throw around, but none can pull in the kind of fees the Barth patents did. Do you think it’s time for Rambus to ride off into the sunset?
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satrain18
January 29, 2012 at 3:12pm
They had a bunch of patent plaques on a wall at their then Los Altos headquarters. At the top , the caption reads "License to Speed". It shoulda said "License to Troll".
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Rambus_HQ_patent_wall_section.JPG
Trekker1091
January 27, 2012 at 9:54pm
I have a question, in the article title, just who exactly is the the "UP Patent Office"? Don't think I've ever heard of them before, LOL!
livebriand
January 27, 2012 at 8:58pm
Cool. I had a PC from 2002 that used RDRAM, and that stuff was SO much more expensive than DDR (of course, DDR2 is as fast as RDRAM, and DDR3 is even better). In fact, even though DDR is quite a bit slower, I wish it used that rather than RDRAM. Has that company done anything useful recently?
carage
January 28, 2012 at 9:17pm
They survived so far because they still have orders from Sony , PS3 utilizeS some RDRAM.
yammerpickle2
January 27, 2012 at 8:02pm
Couldn't have happened to a nicer company. Glad to see the troll that has been living off patents for so long is going to actually have to do something for a living. I hope they can’t afford their legal fees and have to eliminate their legal department! Too bad for them Micron has unveiled a new hybrid cube memory technology that they will make with Samsung and make Rambus totally irrelevant. I just feel sorry for the few technical people who will wind up losing their jobs as Rambus downsizes or closes shop.
JohnP
January 27, 2012 at 5:48pm
I can think of two ways for a patent to be thrown out. One is that there was a prior patent, the other is that there was general usage of the process before by other companies. If there is a prior patent, that means that RAMBUS could be sued for using the process. Now wouldn't that be a kick in the butt?
blkpanthr
January 27, 2012 at 9:32pm
sued, yes
award reversals, no...
the ruling was originally upheld by a court, that cant be reversed...
only challenged...
Mayhemm
January 27, 2012 at 4:21pm
So does this mean Rambus has to refund all its winnings from past patent-suits? Presumably, if the patents are invalid now, they were invalid then too?
Also, what changed to make the patent office suddenly flip sides after ruling in Rambus' favor for so long? Something smells fishy here...
blkpanthr
January 27, 2012 at 5:11pm
no ex-post facto.
You cannot be penalized for actions taken prior to a change in policy.
They had provisional approvlal.
Mayhemm
January 28, 2012 at 3:16am
Damn. Yeah, I figured there was some loophole like that.
Lucky for Rambus, because I don't think they could pay their bill otherwise.
BTW: What does it look like Mario is doing? He's racking up the 1-ups, of course, because Mario is a pro! Did you think something else was going on?
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