Rambus wants to stop Nvidia products from being imported into the US

It seems that the negotiations between Rambus and Nvidia over the licence fees for Rambus patents haven't been going too well. Rambus has now filed a complaint against Nvidia at the US International Trade Commission (USITC), asking the USITC to order an import ban for products with Nvidia parts containing memory controllers for SDRAM memory components like DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, GDDR, GDDR2 and GDDR3. This probably includes most of Nvidia's graphics chips, mainboard chipsets and notebook chipsets, including those incorporated in the latest Apple notebooks as well as products by Asus, BFG, Biostar, Diablotek, EVGA, Gigabyte, HP, MSI, Palit, Pine and Sparkle, who were all explicitly listed by Rambus.

With this measure, the legal representatives of Rambus are increasing the pressure on Nvidia after the lawsuit filed last July didn't seem to have the desired effect. Rambus claims to already have negotiated with Nvidia for six years over licence fees. So far, Rambus has reached licence agreements with most of its opponents. The other companies that remain obstinate are Hynix, Micron, Nanya and Samsung.

In the past few months, however, some of the lawsuits have developed favourably for Rambus; for example, the US FTC had to revoke earlier limitations imposed on the pro rata amounts Rambus is allowed to charge in licence fees. In addition, the fraud charges have been dismissed, allowing Rambus to resume a previously suspended lawsuit against Hynix.

(trk)