Infineon drops Rambus counter-suit

Munich's Infineon Technologies AG has dropped claims made in a counter-suit against Rambus Inc. that the California company's RDRAM memory technology is based on patents owned by Infineon. Infineon has not, though, withdrawn its central claim that Rambus violated the rules of the JEDEC standards organization when it patented SDRAM and DDR DRAM technologies.

No reason was given for dropping the counterclaim. Some speculate, however, that it was decided that the case had no direct bearing on the Rambus against Infineon and therefore does not contribute to the defense. Also last week, Infineon came to an out-of-court settlement with Hyundai Electronics regarding various DRAM and semiconductor issues. Some hypothesize that the deal may put both in a better position to challenge the Rambus patent claims.

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