MUNICH -- Infineon Technologies AG here today promised to vigorously fight a patent infringement lawsuit filed last week by Rambus Inc., which is accusing the German chip company of violating its high-speed synchronous DRAM technologies.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Count in Richmond, Va, is part of Rambus' efforts to collect royalties from DRAM makers for fast SDRAMs, double data rate (DDR) memories, and controllers interfacing those chips. The suit was filed after negotiations for a licensing agreement broke down between the two companies (see Aug. 11 story).
According to industry sources, Infineon had been considering its own suit against Rambus. The legal battle between the two companies is expected to test Rambus' campaign to collect royalty and licensing payments on high-speed memories outside of its own Direct Rambus memory architecture. In the past two months, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company has struck royalty agreements for non-Direct Rambus memories with Toshiba, Hitachi and Oki Electric.
A spokesman for Infineon in Munich today said the company had not yet had a chance to review Rambus' complaint. He also denied any knowledge that the two companies had resumed negotiations for a new agreement covering synchronous DRAM technologies.
Late Friday afternoon, Rambus marketing vice president Avo Kanadjian said his company had resumed discussions with Infineon and hoped to strike an agreement.
--Jack Robertson of Electronic Buyers News reporting from Wasington. EBN is a sister publication of SBN
