Did Rambus Submarine memory makers?

Regular readers will recall that EBN's Jack Robertson, the definitive chip biz insider, recently wrote an article that seemed to reflect the position that Rambus Inc. court documents seen by the press would probably not result in the defeat of Rambus patents. A new article seems to reflect less confidence in the Rambus legal position.

At question is whether Rambus used "Submarine patents" to trick the memory industry into making products that infringed patents that had been kept secret until it was too late for manufacturers to take another development path. This round of legal analysis seems to cast more doubt on Rambus' legal chances, especially given the US Federal Trade Commission's probe of the company's adherence to the JEDEC standards body rules. Those rules require participating companies to disclose any pending patents that could effect the direction of the technologies under discussion. Rambus claims that it filed for its patents after leaving JEDEC and was therefore not bound by the agreement, but critics say Rambus quit in an effort to avoid its obligations to the organization.

Read the source article at ebnews.com.