Rambus Suffers a Setback in Court

After several recent rulings in its favor, Rambus' quest to recover royalties from the memory chip industry was dealt a blow this week with the dismissal of its patent case against Infineon Technologies on allegations of legal misconduct. Judge Robert Payne of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Infineon's request for dismissal of the case on Tuesday, according to a statement distributed by Infineon.

This is the second time Judge Payne has dismissed Rambus' claims that Infineon is infringing upon Rambus patents with its SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) chips. The first time was in 2001, but that decision was later overturned by an appeals court. Rambus believes that Infineon and other DRAM companies are using its patented technology in their SDRAM chips, which can be found in almost all of the world's PCs and servers. The DRAM companies contend that Rambus improperly influenced a standards-setting organization to adopt technology for which Rambus held patents, but Rambus argues that the disclosure policies of that organization did not require notification of current patents or patent applications.

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