WASHINGTON -- Rambus Inc. carried its patent infringement suit against Hitachi Ltd. to the International Trade Commission today, and added Sega Enterprises Ltd. to its latest complaint.
Rambus, of Mountain View, Calif., reiterated claims in the new ITC suit that were filed in its earlier federal court suit that Hitachi violated Rambus patents on clock timing in semiconductor chips (see Jan. 18 story). The ITC suit speficially identifies the Hitachi SH microprocessor family as well as SDRAM and double data rate (DDR) SDRAM memory chips. The Sega Dreamcast electronic game console uses the Hitachi SH processors.
Rambus asked the ITC to uphold its patents and bar all imports of the Hitachi processors and DRAMs, as well as Sega game players using the Hitachi chips.
Adding Sega to its broadening patent battle brings the memory chip competition in electronic game players into the Rambus legal fight. Direct Rambus DRAMs made by Toshiba Corp. are used in the rival Sony PlayStation II game console. By adding Sega to its ITC suit, Rambus poses the threat of expanding its patent case to include any U.S. customer of the Hitachi SH series microprocessors and SDRAM memory.
Most memory chip makers have rallied behind Hitachi in that firm's legal battle with Rambus. So far, Rambus has not expanded its suit against any other chip maker except Hitachi. Sherry Garber, vice president of Semico Research Corp. in Phoenix, said that ultimately Rambus must take on the rest of the chip industry to keep from being accused of discriminating against a single chip company.
Rambus appears tobe following a similar legal strategy as Intel Corp. in that firm's patent fight with Via Technologies Inc. of Taiwan. Intel also carried its case to the ITC, in addition to proceedings in federal district court. Intel also broadened its claims by adding Via customers such as First International Computer of Taiwan.
Rambus' stock price has been taking wide swings in the last few weeks -- skyrocketing from 65 to as high as 475, then yo-yoing between 300 and 400. On Thursday, Mark Edelstone, analyst with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and a veteran Rambus booster, predicted that Rambus stock would top $500 in 18 months. The stock immediately gained 31%, to $349.
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