Memory IP firm Rambus has today settled a long-running dispute with the European Union concerning competition complaints filed by DRAM firms.
Under the terms of the agreement, the European Commission’s competition arm has agreed to make no finding of liability and assess no penalties. In exchange, Rambus has agreed to a series of royalty concessions on memory and memory controller technologies.
“We are pleased to have this matter closed with the Commission. Following a long and detailed examination of the facts, the Commission did not find that Rambus violated the law, nor did it impose any fine,” said Thomas Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. “For our part, we agree to offer licenses at attractive rates for customers to use our patented innovations in computing and electronics products for consumers worldwide.”
Rambus will offer licenses with a maximum royalty rate of 1.5% for DDR2, DDR3, GDDR3 and GDDR4 SDRAM memory types. Qualified licensees will enjoy a royalty holiday for SDR and DDR DRAM devices. In addition, Rambus will offer licenses with a maximum royalty rate of 1.5% per unit for SDR memory controllers through April 2010, dropping to 1.0% thereafter, and royalty rates of 2.65% per unit for DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR3 and GDDR4 memory controllers through April 2010, then dropping to 2.0%. The licenses are good for up to five years and do not settle any additional legal disputes in which Rambus is engaged.
The European Union originally brought charges against Rambus in August 2007 following complaints that the firm had intentionally deceived and patent ambushed the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) by submitting memory IP it later claimed copyright on. Similar charges were drawn up in the United States and were later dismissed by the Federal Trade Commission.
Articles RSS