Rambus, FTC Clash Over Monopoly Ruling
By Colleen Taylor -- 9/22/2006
Electronic News
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is not through with memory technology licensor Rambus Inc. yet. The FTC is now lobbying to bar Rambus from enforcing its pre-1996 patents with respect to JEDEC-compliant products.
After ruling last month that Rambus monopolized four computer memory technologies used in DRAM chips, the FTC "must now restore competition to the conditions that would have prevailed absent Rambus's anticompetitive conduct," the commission said in a public docket filed this week. This remedy purports to restore the competitive conditions that should have existed had Rambus not monopolized the market.
Had it not engaged in deception, the FTC argued, Rambus likely would have received minimal or no royalties from companies practicing the JEDEC standards. "To replicate this competitive world, the appropriate remedy is an order enjoining Rambus from enforcing its patents against devices complying with JEDEC standards and products incorporating such devices," the FTC said in its briefing.
The FTC offered additional proposals for how Rambus could pay its dues. The brief also says that the competition could be restored by instituting a maximum royalty rate onto the company of 0.25 percent for SDRAM, DDR SDRAM and DDR2 SDRAMs. The FTC said, however, that this remedy is inferior to enjoining Rambus from enforcing the patents.
Rambus has its own opinions on an appropriate remedy. In a brief filed with the FTC on Sept. 15, Rambus, maintaining that the FTC erred in last month's ruling in the first place, said it opposed any remedy that would "affirmatively alter current market conditions."
If a market-altering remedy, such as the restriction of royalty rates is deemed necessary by the FTC, Rambus said it should do so only in the markets that Rambus was found to have unlawfully monopolized -- the markets for latency, burst length, data acceleration and clock synchronization technology used in JEDEC-compliant SDRAM and DDR SDRAM devices. Rambus asserted that the company should be allowed to charge more than 2.5 percent royalties in both SDRAM and DDR SDRAM.
No decision has yet been made on the remedy.
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