LOS ALTOS, Calif. -- Rambus Inc. here vowed to "swiftly appeal" a final ruling from a Virginia federal court, which has issued a permanent injunction barring the company from filing new patent suits against Infineon Technologies AG involving double data rate (DDR) synchronous DRAMs based on JEDEC industry standards.
The Los Altos company said the final ruling in the case on Monday was widely anticipated. It also said the injunction order "reaches some, but not all, Rambus patents."
Last spring, a U.S. district court judge in Richmond allowed a jury verdict of fraud against Rambus, barring future lawsuits against Infineon's single data rate SDRAMs. According to Infineon attorney John Desmarais, the federal judge on Monday ruled that Rambus' fraud in hiding its SDRAM patents in JEDEC meetings also covered DDR specifications, which were standardized by the industry committee in June 2000 (see Nov. 26 story).
But Rambus disagrees with the judge's decision. "Today's order Monday was largely as expected, and will be swiftly appealed," said John Danforth, senior vice president and general counsel of Rambus. "With all due respect to the Virginia District Court, today's order builds upon and adds to a series of reversible errors previously made by the same court. These include clear errors of law and fact that are the subject of a pending Rambus appeal for which Rambus has already filed its opening brief.
"The breadth of today's order amplifies these earlier mistakes and adds further reversible errors that Rambus will separately contest," Danforth added.
Last week, a California federal court ruled that Rambus' patents didn't cover SDRAM chips made by Hynix Semiconductor Inc. to the JEDEC standard, according to a Hynix announcement (see Nov. 21 story).
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