Rambus DRAM Royalties to be Capped
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The Federal Trade Commission has imposed caps on royalty rates Rambus can charge for its patented technologies, following an August decision that the company monopolized the market. The company vows to appeal.
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In the latest twist of a long, ongoing legal dispute, German chip maker Infineon TechnologiesÂ has filed a motion with a U.S. judge to dismiss a patent infringement suit brought against it by Rambus.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun Microsystems and Unisys have jointly filed a lawsuit against several major computer memory chip makers seeking compensation for alleged price fixing. The two computer makers individually filed lawsuits against the companies earlier this year but have now brought the cases together in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to a Friday court filing. The complaint names South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor, Infineon Technologies of Germany, Japan's Elpida Memory and Mitsubishi Electric, Taiwan's Mosel Vitelic and Nanya Technology, and U.S. and European units of some of the companies. The lawsuit is one of several filed against DRAM makers after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began an investigation into price fixing in 2002. That has already seen a number of guilty pleas by companies and executives and fines have been levied against some DRAM makers. Last year Samsung ElectronicsÂ wasÂ ordered to pay a $300 million criminal fineÂ and HynixÂ agreed to pay $185 million. InfineonÂ paid $160 million,Â and Japan's Elpida agreed toÂ pay a $84 million fine.
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Shares in Cambridge Antibody Technology will be suspended on Monday morning until the High Court in London rules on a royalty dispute that could radically affect the fortunes of the biotechnology company.
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(InfoWorld) - Qimonda, the world's second largest DRAM (dynamic RAM) maker, has expanded a technology and production pact with Taiwan's Winbond Electronics to provide the company with 80-nanometer manufacturing technology. The deal extends Qimonda's strategy of sharing its research and development expenses by licensing out chip manufacturing technology to partners such as Winbond, Nanya Technology, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. of China. The deals also help Qimonda control costs. The company sources chips from these companies, enabling it to rely on them for a steady supply of DRAM without having to spend billions of dollars on new chip factories. The German company,Â formerly the memory chip divisionÂ of Infineon Technologies, will also continue to source chips from Winbond, it said in a statement. The deal extends a partnership begun in 2002, when Infineon agreed to transfer its 110nm technology to Winbond in return for a portion of its output.
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News that Microsoft must pay $1.5bn for infringing MP3 patents may have widespread effects, experts say.
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update Infineon Technologies will plead guilty to taking part in an international DRAM price-fixing conspiracy, which affected such companies as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, the US Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
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PNY Technologies and SanDisk on Thursday settled a patent dispute that will allow PNY to continue distribution of flash storage products.As part of the settlement, PNY will license technology from SanDisk and pay royalties to distribute flash-memory products including USB (Universal Serial Bus) drives and CompactFlash cards. Other terms of the agreement were not released.SanDisk originally sought legal action against multiple flash storage vendors, including PNY Technologies, as part of three patent-infringement suits filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin and the U.S. International Trade Commission. Alleging the vendors of violating multiple patents, SanDisk sought damages and an order from the ITC banning import of flash-memory products into the U.S.The settlement with PNY will not disrupt patent claims pending against other vendors, SanDisk said in a statement.SanDisk and PNY Technologies representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
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By Hiawatha Bray, The Boston Globe  May 26--Stung by the backlash against increased royalties charged to  Internet broadcasters, the music industry this week offered to give small  online broadcasters a break.
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Inventories at makers of dynamic random   access memory (DRAM) chips dropped to their lowest level in 20   months due to growing sales of personal computers in the   so-called back-to-school season, iSuppli Corp. said.
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German chip maker Infineon Technologies has filed a motion to dismiss a patent-infringement suit by Rambus.
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High-stakes patent royalties battle enters another round.
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Keeping spotty head above US$1 water The DRAM industry has seen DDR2 spot prices spike by 15-20 per cent in the past month, with eTT chips outpacing branded equivalents.â¦
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The European Commission issued a preliminary opinion accusing Rambus of antitrust violations over its DRAM monopoly.
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Spansion sinking nearly a billion dollars into flash memory production.
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The DRAM (dynamic RAM) chip next in line to become mainstream for PC users, DDR3 (double data rate, third generation) will start to find its place in significantly more PCs by the third quarter of this year, Taiwanese DRAM executives said Tuesday.Inotera Memories, a DRAM joint venture&#160;by Qimonda and Nanya Technology, started pilot production of 1Gb DDR3 DRAM this year, and plans to have the chips in mass production by the third quarter to meet growing demand.&quot;There is already demand for DDR3, and it will increase as the year goes on,&quot; said Charles Kau, president of Inotera, during a news conference in Kuei Shan, Taiwan.Pai Pei-lin, a vice president at Nanya Technology, forecast that 30 percent of DRAM demand in the fourth quarter will be for DDR3.That&#39;s a significant share of the DRAM market, and indicates the heyday for DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) may be nearing an end. DDR2 has been the main variety of DRAM used in PCs and laptops for the past few years. DDR3 is an incremental improvement over DDR2, offering users faster speeds, lower power consumption and higher bandwidth.Some companies are already shipping DDR3 memory, including Samsung Electronics, but the chips are only going into a small portion of PCs currently rolling off production lines.The current DRAM glut is changing that. For the last year, DRAM makers have been suffering from falling prices for the chips they make, and most companies will likely post a loss for the fourth quarter, when DRAM prices fell off a cliff.The contract price of 1Gb DDR2 chips that run at 667MHz fell to $1.81 each as of Jan. 21, according to DRAMeXchange Technology, which operates a clearinghouse for the chips. Prices of the chips were at $3 at the start of October, when the current price slump hit.Most companies can&#39;t make money with&#160;DDR2 prices so low. On Tuesday, Inotera Memories reported an NT$3.7 billion (US$114.3 million) loss for the fourth quarter of 2007. Nanya Technology reported an even worse loss of NT$8.2 billion for the same time period.For users, the good news is that during chip gluts, DRAM makers often try to rush new technology to the market in a bid to increase sales of higher margin products. That means DDR3 may arrive sooner than it might have and at a lower price to boot.
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"Copyright officials recommended on Thursday that U.S. law be amended so that companies that rely on copyright infringement to make a profit can be held liable for their actions."  Which of course applies only to US companies.  Kazaa should be free and clear.  ...  Should have supplied a link.  I'm a BAD blogger!