NVIDIA Wins Legal Dispute Against Rambus

Yesterday, the U.S. Patent Office decided that Rambus' accusations against NVIDIA, according to which the latter had manufactured products that violated its patents, were groundless. Although, predictably, Rambus responded to this dismissal of accusations by stating that the patents were still “enforceable,” NVIDIA considers this yet another victory in the long line of legal disputes against the chip designer. The claimant, however, does not seem ready to stop its accusation spree and seems bent on perpetuating the legal disputes against NVIDIA.

“The patents remain valid and enforceable as originally issued until the reexamination proceedings are concluded, including all appeals,” a Rambus spokeswoman said. These patents refer to memory controllers related to graphics processors.

Rambus has spent $300 million on legal disputes since 2000 and this particular case was filed last year in the federal court in San Francisco. Rambus seems to want NVIDIA to pay royalties on memory controller circuits used in its graphics chips. Naturally, the GPU manufacturer has no intention of succumbing to this pressure.

NVIDIA actually requested the review of these patents and will have the International Trade Commission judge in Washington, D.C. analyze the findings (the same judge that is reviewing Rambu's claims). This judge is not bound by the Patent Office and its final decision will weigh enough before the full ITC to decide to either allow NVIDIA to continue its activities or halt the GPU manufacturer's imports from overseas suppliers, if the patents are truly found to have been violated.

The GPU developer doesn't seem to be very concerned, though. It believes that Rambus' claims are baseless. “This continues our string of victories against Rambus patents in the USPTO,” NVIDIA general counsel David Shannon said. “We believe these patents are invalid and are confident that a similar decision will be made on the patents that continue to be examined.”

Although the USPTO has already “preliminarily” rejected Rambus' claims, Shannon mentioned that eight claims concerning two patents still had not been examined.