Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-00334/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-00334-81/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI LITIGATION CONDUCT

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF

E-filed: 3/16/2008 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR INC., HYNIX

SEMICONDUCTOR AMERICA INC.,

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR U.K. LTD., and

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

DEUTSCHLAND GmbH,

Plaintiffs,

v.

RAMBUS INC.,

Defendant.

No. CV-00-20905 RMW

ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI

LITIGATION CONDUCT

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1580 Filed 03/16/08 Page 1 of 7
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI LITIGATION CONDUCT

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 2

 RAMBUS INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR INC., HYNIX

SEMICONDUCTOR AMERICA INC.,

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

MANUFACTURING AMERICA INC., 

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.,

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA,

INC., SAMSUNG SEMICONDUCTOR, INC.,

SAMSUNG AUSTIN SEMICONDUCTOR,

L.P., 

NANYA TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION,

NANYA TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

U.S.A.,

Defendants.

No. C-05-00334 RMW

RAMBUS INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

MICRON TECHNOLOGY, INC., and

MICRON SEMICONDUCTOR PRODUCTS,

INC.

Defendants.

No. C-06-00244 RMW

The parties have passionately argued whether post-Hitachi litigation conduct of the

Manufacturers is relevant to any issue in the case as now being heard by the jury. The

Manufacturers seek to preclude such evidence and argument. They argue that the evidence is

irrelevant and that Rambus's attempt to portray the Manufacturers as big companies banding

together to force Rambus out of business is highly prejudicial even if it has a modicum of relevance. 

Rambus, on the other hand, argues that evidence that the companies banded together to drive

Rambus out of business is relevant to show that the Manufacturers did not incur attorneys' fees to

defend against patent infringement claims brought by Rambus as part of a monopolization scheme

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1580 Filed 03/16/08 Page 2 of 7
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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1 Rambus also mentions, but has not stressed, an argument that the evidence rebuts the

Manufacturers' "lock-in" claim. The theory apparently is that at least Hynix and Micron were not

"locked-in" to the JEDEC standard technology and could have licensed Rambus's technology on a

reasonable and non-discriminatory basis or change their designs but for the alleged promise between

Hynix and Micron to not take a license from Rambus.

ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI LITIGATION CONDUCT

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 3

but rather to drive Rambus, an unwanted competitor, out of business. Although the Manufacturers

complain about some evidence that has been admitted concerning Farhad Tabrizi's initial reactions

and communications with his boss, Sang Park, about fighting Rambus to "the death of the Rambus

company" and the cancellation of a scheduled meeting between Mr. Park and Mr. Tate, the focus of

their motion is to preclude any evidence of the Manufacturers' litigation conduct through Rambus's

further examination of Mr. Tabrizi, Mr. Appleton, Mr. Chung or otherwise. They also want an

instruction advising the jury that joint litigation strategy efforts by defendants are proper to rebut

Rambus's suggestions otherwise.

Rambus asserts that the evidence is relevant to causation and credibility. Rambus's causation

argument seems to be that the Manufacturers incurred attorneys' fees primarily to drive Rambus out

of business and not because Rambus was trying to capture the technology markets by asserting its

patents' claims on certain JEDEC complaint products.1

The court finds Rambus's reasons for offering evidence concerning the post-Hitachi litigation

tactics of Micron and Hynix unpersuasive and its argument to the jury potentially misleading and

prejudicial. Evidence that Hynix and Micron stopped negotiating with Rambus despite Rambus's

willingness to negotiate with them even after the institution of the Hitachi lawsuit is clearly relevant

to show that Rambus, at least according to Rambus, was willing to negotiate a reasonable and nondiscriminatory license with each of the Manufacturers. However, the argument that the primary

cause of the Manufacturers' attorneys' fees was the Manufacturers' desire to force Rambus out of

business for reasons unrelated to Rambus's claims of patent infringement is not supported by the

evidence proffered and seems nonsensical in the context of this case. The Manufacturers may have

wanted to drive Rambus out of business because of its assertion of infringement claims against

JEDEC compliant products, but such a motivation does not constitute a superseding cause or defeat

the causation element of the Manufacturers' antitrust claim if all other elements of an antitrust claim

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1580 Filed 03/16/08 Page 3 of 7
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI LITIGATION CONDUCT

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 4

have been established. The way that the Manufacturers litigated may well affect the reasonableness

of any fees incurred, but that issue is for later resolution if the Manufacturers win their antitrust

claims. In this phase, the Manufacturers only need to show that some damage (attorneys' fees) were

incurred by them as a result of Rambus's alleged antitrust violation.

The scope of Mr. Appleton's testimony. The court will allow Mr. Appleton to explain his

correspondence with Mr. Tate regarding a meeting, his reasons for not going forward with the

meeting as proffered by Mr. Price, and that Micron had no intent of entering into a license with

Rambus. Rambus can cross-examine to show that Rambus remained willing to negotiate and would

have liked to enter into a license. However, whether Micron entered into any joint defense

agreements or developed a joint litigation strategy with Hynix or other manufacturers seems

irrelevant. Even if cross-examination on any joint defense agreement or litigation coordination

efforts has some marginal relevance regarding bias, the probative value is substantially outweighed

by the risk of substantial prejudice and confusion of the issues.

There is no need for Mr. Appleton to testify about the foreign patent litigation as Dr. Gilbert

used a United States geographic market, the foreign patent litigation raises a number of issues that

would have to be explained, and the lawsuits were instituted after Micron filed suit and thus do not

shed much additional light on Micron's intent in not taking a license and its alleged need to institute

litigation.

The court believes that Hynix wishes to call D.S. Chung to provide similar testimony

regarding Hynix's license negotiations with Rambus. As with Mr. Appleton, Mr. Chung may testify

why Hynix chose to break off negotiations with Rambus. The same limits on cross-examination

applicable to Mr. Appleton apply to Mr. Chung.

Argument regarding the Manufacturers' litigation conduct. Rambus's opening and transition

statements suggest that one of Rambus's themes is that the large, conniving Manufacturers actually

instigated the litigation to put an up-start innovator out of business. The court believes that any

potential prejudice from statements made to date may be eliminated by taking judicial notice of the

United States lawsuits between the parties and the claims therein. The court will also provide an

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1580 Filed 03/16/08 Page 4 of 7
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI LITIGATION CONDUCT

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 5

instruction explaining the nature of a declaratory relief action. Further, if deemed necessary, the

court can give a closing instruction that whether the Manufacturers engaged in joint litigation

strategy is not relevant to the issue of whether Rambus engaged in conduct that violates the antitrust

laws.

DATED: 3/16/2008 

RONALD M. WHYTE

United States District Judge

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1580 Filed 03/16/08 Page 5 of 7
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI LITIGATION CONDUCT

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 6

Notice of this document has been electronically sent to:

Counsel for Rambus Inc., all actions Counsel for Hynix entities, C-00-20905 and C-05-00334

Burton Alexander

Gross

Burton.Gross@mto.com Allen Ruby ruby@allenrubylaw.com

Carolyn Hoecker

Luedtke

carolyn.luedtke@mto.com Belinda Martinez Vega bvega@omm.com

Catherine Rajwani crajwani@sidley.com Daniel J. Furniss djfurniss@townsend.com

Craig N. Tolliver ctolliver@mckoolsmith.com Geoffrey Hurndall Yost gyost@thelenreid.com

David C. Yang david.yang@mto.com Jordan Trent Jones jtjones@townsend.com

Douglas A. Cawley dcawley@mckoolsmith.com Joseph A. Greco jagreco@townsend.com

Erin C. Dougherty erin.dougherty@mto.com Kenneth Lee Nissly kennissly@thelenreid.com

Gregory P. Stone gregory.stone@mto.com Kenneth Ryan

O'Rourke 

korourke@omm.com

Jennifer Lynn Polse jen.polse@mto.com Patrick Lynch plynch@omm.com

Keith Rhoderic Dhu

Hamilton, II

keith.hamilton@mto.com Susan Gregory

VanKeulen 

svankeulen@thelenreid.com

Kelly Max Klaus kelly.klaus@mto.com Theodore G. Brown, III tgbrown@townsend.com

Miriam Kim Miriam.Kim@mto.com Tomomi Katherine

Harkey 

tharkey@thelen.com

Peter A. Detre detrepa@mto.com Counsel for Micron entities, C-06-00244

Pierre J. Hubert phubert@mckoolsmith.com Aaron Bennett Craig aaroncraig@quinnemanuel.com

Rosemarie Theresa

Ring

rose.ring@mto.com David J. Ruderman davidruderman@quinnemanuel.co

m

Scott L Cole scole@mckoolsmith.com Harold Avrum Barza halbarza@quinnemanuel.com

Scott W. Hejny shejny@sidley.com Jared Bobrow jared.bobrow@weil.com

Sean Eskovitz sean.eskovitz@mto.com John D Beynon john.beynon@weil.com

Steven McCall

Perry 

steven.perry@mto.com Leeron Kalay leeron.kalay@weil.com

Thomas N Tarnay ttarnay@sidley.com Linda Jane Brewer lindabrewer@quinnemanuel.com

William Hans

Baumgartner, Jr

wbaumgartner@sidley.com Rachael Lynn Ballard

McCracken

rachaelmccracken@quinnemanuel.

com

Robert Jason Becher robertbecher@quinnemanuel.com

Yonaton M

Rosenzweig 

yonirosenzweig@quinnemanuel.co

m

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1580 Filed 03/16/08 Page 6 of 7
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING POST-HITACHI LITIGATION CONDUCT

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 7

Counsel for Nanya entities, C-05-00334 Counsel for Samsung entities, C-05-00334 and C-05-

02298

Chester Wren-Ming Day cday@orrick.com Ana Elena Kadala anita.kadala@weil.com

Craig R. Kaufman ckaufman@orrick.co

m

Claire Elise Goldstein claire.goldstein@weil.com

Glenn Michael Levy glevy@orrick.com David J. Healey david.healey@weil.com

Jan Ellen Ellard jellard@orrick.com Edward Robert Reines Edward.Reines@weil.com

Jason Sheffield Angell jangell@orrick.com Matthew D. Powers matthew.powers@weil.com

Kaiwen Tseng ktseng@orrick.com 

Mark Shean mshean@orrick.com

Robert E. Freitas rfreitas@orrick.com

Vickie L. Feeman vfeeman@orrick.com

Counsel for intervenor, Texas Instruments, Inc., C-05-00334

Kelli A. Crouch kcrouch@jonesday.com

Counsel for intervenor, United States Department of Justice, C-00-20905

Eugene S. Litvinoff eugene.litvinoff@usdoj.gov

May Lee Heye may.heye@usdoj.gov

Nathanael M. Cousins nat.cousins@usdoj.gov

Niall Edmund Lynch Niall.Lynch@USDOJ.GOV

Counsel for intervenor, Elpida Memory, Inc., C-00-20905 and C-05-00334

Eric R. Lamison elamison@kirkland.com

John J. Feldhaus jfeldhaus@foley.com

Counsel are responsible for distributing copies of this document to co-counsel that have not

registered for e-filing under the court's CM/ECF program in each action.

Dated: 3/16/08 TSF

Chambers of Judge Whyte

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1580 Filed 03/16/08 Page 7 of 7