Rambus the Patent Troll Seeks to Strike Nvidia

Rambus, the technology company turned responsible for RDRAM has filed suit against Nvidia claiming that they violated 17 of its memory patents. Rambus’ lawsuit alleges that at least six of Nvidia's product lines infringe the Rambus patents including chip sets, graphics processors and applications processors. They ask for an injunction that would prevent Nvidia from selling the products as well as damages.

Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus was quoted as saying, "For more than six years, we have diligently attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with Nvidia, but our good faith efforts have been to no avail," he adds, "We are left with no other recourse than litigation to protect and seek fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions,".

Can you smell the bull? I better get my rubber boots it’s getting thick. His own statement shows this to be an attempt to force Nvidia to cough up something to make Rambus go away and they haven't been interested. Nvidia has yet to comment on the suit.

RDRAM went to hell in a hand basket and was relegated to a few consoles and peripherals. Little else has come from Rambus for PCs since, except a stream of lawsuits against several of the world's top DRAM manufacturers.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruled in 2006 that Rambus used anticompetitive practices in some of its memory patents. But that ruling was overturned appeals cases early this year.

Rambus has turned Patent Troll, and this could signal many more lawsuits to come from them. Since Lavelle as senior VP is also the general counsel, perhaps Rambus intends to become a law firm and sue it’s way to making a buck. We can hope they may eventually bite off more than they can chew.