Another update on standardization skullduggery

Abstract

This is an update on the May-June and July-August Micro Law columns on recent abuse of the standard-setting process. On 9 August, the trial judge entered about 200 pages of final orders and opinions in the case. The next day, Rambus filed a notice of appeal to the US court of appeals for the Federal Circuit, which will probably take at least a year to dispose of the appeal case. Barring the unexpected, this should be the last you hear about this particular episode of standardization skullduggery for a long time. However, there seems to be no let-up in standardization skullduggery by others. As you may recall, a jury in Richmond, Virginia, found that Rambus, with the aid of a mysterious informant designated Secret Squirrel, defrauded the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association (formerly, the Joint Electronic Devices Engineering Council) and, the dynamic RAM industry. Infineon had alleged that Rambus, manipulated its claims in pending patent applications to cover the evolving JEDEC standards on single-data-rate (SDR) and double-data-rate (DDR) synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM) chips. After JEDEC issued the patents and published the standards, Rambus demanded that SDRAM manufacturers take high-priced licenses under the patents. Patent infringement litigation followed when three manufacturers (Infineon, Micron, and Hyundai), refused to take licenses. Infineon's case went to trial first, which led to the fraud verdict. Rambus filed papers with the court explaining why it was not guilty of fraud and asking the court to overturn the verdict and enter in its favor a judgment as a matter of law (JMOL). A JMOL is a judgment that a court enters to overturn a jury verdict because the court believes that no reasonable jury could have reached such a verdict.