In a message dated 3/18/01 12:35:38 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Robert.Harley@inria.fr writes:
<< gg wrote:
>here's mud in your one good eye,
Well I don't feel muddy, nor do I particularly like the direction this
thread is taking but I'll reply to your points nevertheless.
the thread started with your jubilance over a ruling against rambus and, i
suppose, an assumption that all readers share in your jubilance. this one
doesn't. sorry for referencing the cyclops.
>>The smarmy attitude is helpful. Basically he is saying that the [...]
>you can put it that way; it would be in keeping with your feelings that the
>laws protecting intellectual poperty are "smarmy."
Hager's attitide is smarmy. Where did you get the idea I was
referring to IP laws?
it's bill teel's article, and he makes his case based on the law. IP laws
allow one instance of infringement out of many (or ten hydra heads of a
hundred, as you put it) to determine the case.
>I presume you saw this...
>[...]
> Judge Delays Hearing of Rambus's
> Patent Lawsuit Against Infineon
>
> A WSJ.com News Roundup
This is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff that, by my way of thinking,
doesn't compare to having scope of patent claims limited, and
racketeering allegations allowed.
to clarify: racketeering allegations by infinium. even i can't see
disallowing them as testimony - how potent can they be? (i don't think the
wsj thinks the implications are "run-of-the-mill" but you can take that up
with their editorial staff if you think too much is being made of it. lying
about what was said in private is exactly what got microsoft in trouble. )
> continuing hager:
>"Thinking long-term, we believe it is Rambus' core technology that is
>currently shipping in the Pentium 4 from Intel, as well as in a number of
>other devices, that will truly determine Rambus' outcome as a viable
>investment.
Ah, so Rambus's technology is shipping "in the Pentium 4". That reveals
what his command of the technical issues is.
if you remember, there were people referring to the p3 as "rambus chips,"
when it turned out the problems with the p3 were with non-rmbs technology.
now the industry is careful to make distinctions. if it were your product
i'm sure you'd do the same.
>RDRAM memory has been established as a standard, and there is little
>in the way of preventing it from becoming the dominant PC standard in
>the industry.
There is also little in the way of DDR SDRAM becoming dominant, or the
two of them sharing the market.
well, rob, you imply below that there will be sharing. so what's your
problem?
Current chipsets for the Pentium 4 support RDRAM and not SDRAM
because of Intel's contract with Rambus which includes a few $100M
sweetener when they ship more chipsets supporting RDRAM than SDRAM for
two quarters.
Last year's Pentium III chipsets with RDRAM support didn't work out as
planned, to put it mildly. On Pentium 4, RDRAM is the only choice,
but starting in Q3 Intel intends to release Pentium 4 chipsets with
SDRAM support. The first will be non-DDR, with DDR to follow early
next year. Bye-bye Rambus's exclusivity on Pentium 4.
and bye-bye racketeering charges.
>In a few years, this court case will be relatively
>meaningless to Rambus' revenue stream. [...]
Of course Rambus will continue to sell/license RDRAM and draw revenue
from that. They designed it and own all the IP. This is where they
added value so it seems fitting that they should benefit from it.
However the scenario used to be that they owned critical IP on
competing technologies too, that they could charge high licensing
fees if they felt like it, that they could favour RDRAM this way and
make lots o' cash from SDRAM as well.
"could" is the critical word here.
Its looking increasing like they will have to compete against other
memory technologies on their merits. This is good. >>
no one disagrees with you here, rob. best of luck to you and your friend(s).
geege
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 27 2001 - 23:14:19 PDT