Micron Technology Inc. attorneys Friday confirmed that the chip maker's initial patent trial against Rambus Inc. in the Wilmington, Del., federal court has been postponed five months until Oct. 29.
A nonjury trial had been scheduled to begin May 31 concerning fraud allegations against Rambus for failing to disclose its synchronous patent applications while participating in the industry JEDEC committee drafting an open SDRAM standard.
The JEDEC fraud question will once again be combined in a single jury trial along with the issue of validity of the Rambus patents.
Earlier this month the Wilmington court had divided the Micron suit into two separate trials on the JEDEC allegations and on Rambus patent validity.
Legal sources close to the Rambus patent infringement cases who asked not be identified said the five-month delay in the original Micron trial on the JEDEC fraud allegations probably suits both sides.
Rambus didn't want the fraud case to be heard before the federal judge in Wilmington, Del. only weeks after the jury in the Rambus/Infineon trial in Richmond, Va. found Rambus had committed fraud, the sources believed.
And the adverse decisions against the Rambus patents in Richmond meant Micron could afford to wait, knowing it was under no pressure now to seek a speedy resolution to its own case.
If Judge Payne in Richmond finds Rambus patents unenforceable due to fraud, (a ruling is now expected next month) then Micron attorneys are expected to ask the Wilmington federal court judge in a pretrial motion to make the same ruling in their case.
The legal sources said that would eliminate the need for Micron's own trial on the JEDEC allegations that was supposed to start May 31.
A separate Micron trial on the JEDEC fraud charges also would run the risk of a possible adverse ruling. Micron reported it has a much stronger case for having the Wilmington court determine the Rambus patents are unenforceable if it can cite the precedent of the Richmond trial.
Sources said Micron almost assuredly will also file a pretrial motion in the Wilmington court asking Judge Roderick McKelvie to rule that the Rambus patents cover only DRAMs using a single multiplexed memory bus.
As with Infineon SDRAMs, the Micron chips follow the JEDEC industry standard requiring three separate memory bus lines.
Judge Payne in the Richmond court dismissed all infrignement claims against Infineon, ruling that firm's SDRAMs and DDR chips didn't have the mulitplexed bus that Rambus patents require.
A third Rambus patent case is pending in the Federal District Court in San Jose, Calif., where Hynix Semiconductor Co. (formerly Hyundai Electronics Industries Co.) is suing the memory chip designer to invalidate the synchronous patents. No trial date has been set yet in that case.
Separate Rambus patent violation cases against Hynix, Infineon and Micron in a German court are being heard before a judge only. Decisions in these cases are expected to be handed down within one or two months.
A British court has deferred a Rambus case against Hynix until the European Patent Organization rules on the validity of the synchronous patents.
Separately, Micron reported that the judge in an Italian court is slated to make his decision next week in the Rambus synchronous patent infringement suit in that country involving the U.S. chip maker.
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