Rambus Loses a Major Patent, Troll Shares Plummet As NVIDIA Grins

Rambus is one of the few, if not the only, company that we have no problem calling a patent troll, but it looks like the troll isn't going to be laughing for much longer, if it even is at this point.

The so-called licensing company has just lost one of three major patents used in a battle against NVIDIA, marking the second great blow to its value during the past three months.

Patent 6,591,353, otherwise called “Protocol for Communication with Dynamic Memory”, has been invalidated on the basis of prior art, much to NVIDIA's vindication.

“As NVIDIA persuasively explains, Hayes describes time-multiplexed clock data transfers between a master and slave during different clock cycles, and Bennett teaches benefits to providing a synchronized interface in a memory device using an external clock,” said the patent examiner.

“NVIDIA shows that it would have been obvious in view of Bennett to implement certain control logic, including a synchronous logic interface, into the memory device of Hayes.”

Rambus is arguably the most notorious patent troll of them all, having made a habit of filing entries with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and then suing companies for alleged infringement.

For more than a decade, it has relied on lawsuits and subsequent settlements as the primary source of income.

Now, though, it is experiencing a serious case of seeing its greatest efforts blow up in its face.

Not only did it get hit with this, but it also lost a lawsuit against Hynix and Micron in November, 2011 (more on the ruling here).

To its credit, Rambus appears to have started creating technologies again, like a new memory signaling breakthrough announced last year.

For those who want to know exactly what consequences all this has had on the licensing company, the share price fell by a lot right after the ruling. It also has only 3 patents left (out of six) in its ongoing litigation with NVIDIA and five others.