The South Korean memory maker said the ruling was based on definitions issued by another federal court in Virginia, which presided over a similar patent lawsuit between Rambus and Infineon Technologies AG of Germany.

On Monday, the U.S. district court in Richmond issued a permanent injunction barring Rambus from filing new patent suits against Infineon involving double data rate (DDR) synchronous DRAMs based on JEDEC industry standards. Earlier this year, a jury in the Virginia case found Rambus guilty of fraud in hiding its SDRAM patents from the JEDEC standards committee, which was setting industry specifications for DDR memories. Rambus, based in Los Altos, Calif., promised this week to appeal the injunction along with the jury's decision (see Nov. 27 story).

Hynix has filed suit against Rambus, alleging that the company had committed fraud and violated U.S. antitrust laws by its behavior in the JEDEC standards process. Those charges are still scheduled to go to trial, according to Hynix. Last week, the U.S. District Court of Northern California temporarily delayed its ruling in the Hynix case (see Nov. 21 story).

On Monday, the California federal court issued its ruling on Rambus' patent claims, dismissing all but two, according to Hynix today. "This ruling clearly vindicates our position and prevents Rambus from using the courts to eliminate legitimate competition," stated Farhad Tabrizi, vice president of worldwide memory marketing at Hynix. He said the decision to dismiss nearly all of the Rambus claims was also "a victory for the concept of open standards."

A response from Rambus was not immediately available.