Rambus Wants ITC to Halt Sale of Everything
Rambus Wants ITC to Halt Sale of Everything
Posted 12/02/2010 at 3:46pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
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Technology licensing firm Rambus has gone to the International Trade Commission (ITC) to file a complaint asking for a very simple, even humble thing. They want the ITC to block the import and sale of any product infringing on its semiconductor patents. Sound reasonable? Well, it turns out that covers products from Broadcom, Freescale, NVIDIA, and more. As for the types of products Rambus thinks are infringing, that would be "personal computers, workstations, servers, routers, mobile phones and other handheld devices, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, motherboards, plug-in cards, hard drives and modems." In case you haven't noticed, that's just about everything that makes us happy around here.
Rambus has been involved in a number of long running patent disputes with the likes of Nvidia. After trying in vain to work out licensing deals with everyone that's ever gone near a semiconductor, Rambus felt only legal action would get their point across. That's probably the real goal of this filing with the ITC. It is supremely unlikely that the commission would see fit to ban the sale of all these items. ITC complaints are a regular part of patent disputes, although they are not usually this expansive.
There is at least some validity to Rambus' claims. They won a partial victory over Nvidia last summer. But they do have quite the reputation at a patent troll these days. Should the world's technology companies just pay off Rambus, or is this just a lot of bluster?
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spectrex
December 03, 2010 at 6:03am
I think it would be a good idea to bill the people posting all the advertisements in the comments. I am sure it is not difficult to use the IP number, or better yet bill the the company the advertisements link to. I bet advertisements on MaximumPC are rather expensive.
COMMANDER_COOK
December 03, 2010 at 2:47am
7 out of the 13 comments on this article are spam.
Maxpc, I think it might help if you put a waiting period on new accounts before they can post anything.
LatiosXT
December 02, 2010 at 10:18pm
I had a thought. I want every electronics company and any store that sales goods that Rambus suspects is infringing on a patent to cease the sale of everything. Now you might think I'm crazy, but I'm sure it won't last long. People will wonder why such sales are no longer there. They can post "Sales no longer available at the request of Rambus". Thus, everyone will know who Rambus is, not just us people reading the latest tech news. Rambus will literally have the world against them now. Then maybe they'll see what a bunch of freagin' idiots they are, that or some few crazy people will make sure they cease to exist. Here's hoping.
Zachary K.
December 02, 2010 at 6:56pm
rambus no longer has any engineers, just patent lawyers. with this change they are on the cutting edge of patent trolling technology!
Danthrax66
December 02, 2010 at 6:04pm
Yay copyright laws!
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
This copyright inhibits the progress of science because rambus doesn't do shit therefore this copyright should be invalid.
gendoikari1
December 02, 2010 at 4:15pm
Why oh why can't a company just buy out Rambus and shut them up for good?
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