Opinion ID: 216683
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rambus

Text: Rambus was founded in 1990 to commercialize inventions related to features of computer dynamic random access memory (DRAM). All of the patents in suit claim priority to Rambus's 07/510,898 application ('898 application), filed on April 18, 1990. The first filed and issued of the patents in suit, the '105 patent, was filed on November 26, 1997, and issued on June 22, 1999. Rambus prosecuted the patents in suit continuously throughout the 1990s and until 2002. Rambus's primary business is licensing its intellectual property to DRAM manufacturers. Initially, Rambus focused its efforts on the Direct RDRAM ramp, which comprised granting narrow licenses to RAM manufacturers to produce only a particular type of DRAM known as Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) and later Direct RDRAM, and restricting the use of Rambus's intellectual property for the production of other types of RAM (what Rambus terms non-compatible uses). Rambus achieved a measure of success through this practice, licensing RDRAM production by Samsung, Hynix (then Hyundai), Hitachi, Micron, and several of the largest RAM manufacturers to meet the demand created by Intel's use of RDRAM in its Pentium 4 chipset. During the licensing period, however, several of the manufacturers also produced noncompatible DRAM, including SDRAM and DDR SDRAM, which are at issue in this case. As discussed in further detail in Micron II, Intel eventually began to move away from RDRAM, in favor of SDRAM and DDR SDRAM.