In 1990, California-based Rambus obtained a patent on a technology called RDRAM - Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory – and continued to work on that technology throughout the 1990s.
At some point after 1990, Rambus joined the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council(JEDEC), an industry association that was trying to set a standard for another type of memory technology, the synchronous dynamic random access memory, or SDRAM.
The FTC charges that while Rambus was a member of the JEDEC it amended its original patent to include technologies that the JEDEC were at the time discussing with regard to SDRAM. The FTC has stepped in because Rambus is now seeking royalties from those patents.
Controversially, the court was allowed to see documents, written by Rambus’ patent lawyer at the time, which allegedly prove this deception. Normally such papers are covered by the attorney-client privilege, but an earlier court ruling had lifted the privilege because of evidence that the company had destroyed important documents relating to the case.
FTC Deputy Competition Director Sean Royall told the court that the notes show that Rambus had been advised by its own lawyers to “stop what it was doing” and step down from the JEDEC.
"We are here because Rambus simply refused to play by the rules," said Royall. "Rambus seeks to cling to a potential fortune in royalties that it acquired not through competition, but through deception."
Royall argued that the company had been under a duty to disclose the patents to the JEDEC before entering into a discussion on industry standards.
Rambus denies the charges. Gregory Stone, attorney for the company, assured the court, "We're here because Rambus wants fair compensation for [its] inventions”.
In a statement issued on Monday Rambus said, “The inventions were described in detail in publicly available patent documents that were discussed at JEDEC and that were closely scrutinized by JEDEC members. The evidence will show that Rambus made detailed disclosures of its technology prior to joining JEDEC to numerous companies in the industry.”
Rambus will be encouraged in its argument by the recent decision in its favour in a separate case against Infineon Technologies. Here the Appeal Court concluded that there had been no fraud with regard to the JEDEC. Infineon is expected to appeal.