A U.S. district judge ruled this week that Hynix Semiconductor must defend itself
from as many as 50 patent infringement claims filed against it by rival
chipmaker Rambus .
According to a statement by Rambus,
Judge Ronald Whyte issued a summary judgment after
receiving seven summary judgment motions filed by the parties in advance
of a March 21 court date in California.
The case stems from assertions
by Rambus that South Korea-based Hynix infringed on its patents,
including 15 computer memory products that are made and/or sold by
Hynix.
Of the six summary judgment motions filed by Hynix, Judge Whyte
granted one, according to the statement. This resulted in nine claims in four patents containing the
term “second external clock signal” being removed from the case. The
ruling reduces the number of claims against Hynix from 59 to 50,
according to the statement.
The court rejected Hynix’s arguments for summary judgment regarding validity
and infringement challenging the remaining 50 claims.
Judge Whyte made two sets of rulings on Rambus’s summary judgment. First,
he ruled that Hynix infringes 29 claims from four asserted Rambus
patents. The judge also ruled that Rambus was limited in the way it
could accuse Hynix in 11 of its claims.
The U.S. court ruling follows reports by the Seoul Economic Daily
newspaper that Hynix was granted a motion this week by the European
Patent Office dismissing Rambus’ claims and clearing Hynix of
infringement charges.
A spokesperson for the European Patent Office was not immediately
available to comment.
A spokesman for Hynix declined to comment on either the Rambus case
or the claims made by the European Patent Office.
Rambus General Counsel John Danforth said Hynix would only be
required to handle 10 patents at a time.
“There may be a mix of some of the proven infringement claims and the
ones where we will have to prove it in front of a jury,” Danforth told internetnews.com.
“But we only need to prove one to get paid.”
The two sides will be back in court in June to work out counterclaims
by Hynix that Rambus had an unfair advantage with its computer memory
products, thanks to its relationship with Intel and
the Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council (JEDEC), a non-profit
organization that promotes technological standards.
In a separate court case starting Friday, Danforth said Rambus begins
its $1 billion antitrust case against four of its rivals: Hynix, Micron
Technology , Infineon Technologies
and
Siemens . Rambus accuses each of price fixing and
conspiracy to drive its RDRAM technology out of the market.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also looking into the charges of
collusion.
