Rambus (RMBS): Day 2 Firsthand notes from yusfdbk...

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Threejack

Re: None

Friday, 03/17/2006 4:45:02 AM

Friday, March 17, 2006 4:45:02 AM

Day 2

Firsthand notes from yusfdbk at Yahoo. He begins with some insight into what was reported by Bloomberg:

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From Bloomberg:

"That prompted complaints from Gregory Stone, Rambus' lawyer, who said he had been barred from telling the jury about agreements between Hynix, Micron Technology Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and others that Rambus believes show they worked together to boycott Rambus products and challenge its patents.

`Starve Rambus'

``The reason they are not paying is because they all got together and said let's not pay, lets just starve them to death,'' said Stone. ``This whole thing was set up to starve Rambus.''

U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte said he's leaning toward letting Rambus counter Furniss' suggestions that Rambus was demanding unreasonable royalties.

``It would be fair, but I want to look at this, to allow Rambus to explain in evidence that the fact that Samsung, Hynix and Micron did not enter into license wasn't because they necessarily thought the asking price was too high but because of some agreement with them to harm Rambus or not buy Rambus products,'' said Whyte after the jury had left the courtroom."

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This is the dynamite that Mark teased you about. I'm sure he'll explain more later.

Hynix tried to pull a fast one, and Stone called them on it to Judge Whyte.

There will be a hearing on what Judge Whyte will allow Rambus to tell the Jury about the conspiracy among the Dramurai to kill Rambus, by litigating Rambus to death, aout the Joint Defense Agreement, and possibly even the AT issues.

Hynix Attys looked like they sh*t their pants at the end of the exchange before Judge Whyte.

All of this occurred just after the Jury was dismissed at 12:45.

CASE COVERAGE:
Case from begining of the day on Thursday 3/16/06:
Mike Farmwald sat at Council table with Stone for Rambus facing the Jury. Mike has a very pleasant and gentle demeanor, and looks like a very nice relativly young man. He is relaxed without being loose or bored and makes eye contact, and pays attention to the participants, including the jurors.

Hynix table included 5 Hynix Attorneys and Korean COO of Hynix, I didn't get his name, Wang, or Chang. Their expressions ranged form grim to angry.

The Hynix exec Chang looked like an iron jawed bull dog with a set face and grimacing eyes. Brown of Hynix,looked angry. Furniss, lead Atty for Hynix looks like one of the Wrestling villians you loved to boo and hiss. Big, red-faced, with rough skin and a large round head with a helmet of dyed-black hair pasted on to it.

Jury came in.

Stone continued his Opening Statement:

Review of previous days presentation:

-A Memory bottlenec existed.
-Farmwald and Horowitz developed inventions that solved the memory bottleneck.
-Hynix used Rambus Inventions to build SDRAM and DDR
- "Need more Speed Use More Inventions" board was in front where the Jurors could see it, and Stone reiterated it.
-Reviewed how two claims were infringed by Hynix.

Then he told them about doctrine of equivalence.
-Hynix infringes literally
-Hynix infringes by doctrine of equivalence.

-Validity
*Many ways to use the Rambus inventions.
*Showed again in the patent where it said
-Bus could be 8, 16 or more bits wide,
depending on the pins available.
*Inventions are distinct and separate.

-Hynix may claim inventions were OBVIOUS
-Hynix may say previous art shows the inventions; BUT

PTO looked at 394 separate pieces of Prior Art
in the Patent and in the application
process
Hynix references 52 pieces of Prior Art,
Of those:
Hynix is them in evidence at trial;
*30 of those are among those considered by
the PTO and dismissed as not relevant;
*That leaves 22 remaining:
*According Mr. Taylor, Hynix Expert,
19 of these 22 show the same thing as
those considered by the PTO.
That leaves 3 pieces of Art: Redwine patent
Buddy Patent, and Morgan patent.
The Morgan Patent dealt with the Intel
iATF 432 (a cpu).
But Intel didn't think it had the
solution to the memory bottleneck,
that's why Intel was actively seeking a
solution, even though the Morgan Patent
was theirs.
-One of three was owned by NEC. They didn't
think they owned the solution, They signed
a license.
-2nd of three is not about memory at all.
-3rd, Redwine Hynix claims effects only dual
edge clocking, not the other 5 claims in
suit.
* Redwine patent speaks a different
use,
NOT dual edge clocking of a
synchronous memory circuit with data
output synched to the rising and
fallingedges of the clock

PTO is required by law to review the
Rambus Patent and all the prior art
offered by Rambus or that they discover,
and determine that it is
new, useful, and not obvious.

Stone here showed a blow up of the granting
page of the patent:

"The PTO affirms that all legal requirements have been complied with and has determined that the invention is new, useful and not obvious and a patent should be granted."

Stone continued:
"Hynix could have asked for an reexamination of the patent by the PTO..."
Furniss rose and objected "Inappropriate"

There was a short side bar, then Judge Whyte affirmed Hynix objection and Stone continued his presentation:

14 years have passed since the original patent was issued and the inventions are still relevant.
IEEE just awarded Professor Horowitz its highest award. Why?
According to the IEEE Award Certificate:
Professor Horowitz hs changed the way the
entire industry thinks about memory
architecture and design. His inventions
have fostered a revolution.
Mike Farmwald and Mark Horowitz have increase memory system speed by 20X

But this cas is not just about patents products and inventions, it is about people:

Mark Horowitz. Why was he able to find a solution to the memory bottleneck problem when other failed? hewas fealess about problem solving.

And Mike Farmwald. he was not from the DRAM industry. he thought "out of the box".
he was not constrained to the industry thinking which at the time was to take everything off the DRAM to get the cost down.

He came up with something novel and useful, and it spawned an industry that led to digital TV, Cell phone, and low cost high speed PCs.

It is also about other people, People like Mr. Chung, sitting here at the Hynix table.

Mr. Chung receive notice from Rambus that their products infringed on Rambus Patents.

Mr. Chung replied that he'd like to negotiate a license.
They held meetings over a period of two
months;
They negotiated wording and terms of an
agreement.
Mr. Chung never complained about the
royalty rate being too high.

Hynix never said during these discussions
they thought the patents
were invalid, or that there were problems
with the patents.

In august, Mr. Chung's boss, Mr. Park sent an email to Tate asking for a meeting to finalize a settlement agreement.

Tate agreed and made plans and travel arrangements.

But in the interim, a meeting was held by four people at hynix headquarters including Sang Park, Mr. Chang, and two other senior executives.

Then without warning , without a call or other notice, on August 29 Hynix filed suit. They then sent an email saying only:
"We reject your offer."

They didn't say the price was too high.
They didn't say we won't pay.
They just filed suit.

Sorry guys, that is all I can do for tonight.
I will try to do some more tomorrow.

Hopefully Mark will post later and more completely, as I missed a good chunk of what happened next.

good luck,

In all it was a good day.

http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=4687909&tid=rmbs&sid=468...

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