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Danforth's Article - talk about an affirmation for everything we ltl's have been saying for years!!!how nice to have it confirmed rambus feels the same way! (my comments in red)
Severe flaws in the FTC’s enforcement process permitted its antitrust powers to be used to advance the anti-competitive interests of Rambus’ rivals (can you say "conspiracy"?)
JEDEC’s written disclosure rules were, at best, vague (a conclusion reached in 2003 by the Federal Circuit in the related case of Rambus v. Infineon Technologies).
• In the early 1990s, two prominent JEDEC members (IBM and Hewlett-Packard) had formally announced, without rebuke from the association, their refusal to disclose any further patents or patent applications.
• While at JEDEC, Rambus itself indicated that it did not care to comment on its intellectual property and stated in writing that nothing about potentially relevant IP rights should be inferred from its silence. • JEDEC’s leadership wrote to its members in 1997 that the memory standardization efforts were running behind industry needs and that it therefore had to “take the work” of Rambus and issue that work as JEDEC’s “own” standards. (***OK - this is NEW to me...what's Danforth talking about here???) The FTC staff can become hostage to segments of an industry, beguiled by business witnesses or relying too heavily on donated legal help, (Danforth doesn't miss a trick, does he?) and may bring cases it never should have or stick with cases long after discovery has revealed weaknesses
Those in industry who urged the FTC to move against Rambus had strong financial reasons to do so. They were (and are) using Rambus’ patented inventions in billions of dollars’ worth of semiconductors and semiconductor systems shipped each year. Keeping DDR DRAM free of Rambus royalties (or subject to minimal royalties through the overbroad FTC remedy) also improved that product’s competitive position against Rambus’ own designs
Presumably ("ahem" - haha) the staff did not know, for example, that at the same time one CEO was testifying in the FTC’s 2003 administrative proceeding (discussing, among other things, industry competitiveness), his company was about to work out a leniency deal with the Justice Department concerning its participation in the second-largest criminal price-fixing case in Justice Department history. Later-discovered e-mail shows that the price fixing overlapped with the 2001-2002 period when the industry was lobbying the FTC to go after Rambus and that the price fixing was apparently intended, at least in part, to lower DDR DRAM prices in order to drive Rambus products from the market -- (Can you say linda turner, micron vp, memo????)
Thank you, John Danforth!
;-)
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Msg # | Subject | Author | Recs | Date Posted |
215887 | Re: Danforth's Article - talk about an affirmation for everything we ltl's have been saying for years!!! | shamrokkevin | 8 | 5/3/2008 8:04:03 PM |