Rambus Victory Affirmed by Judge

Rambus Inc. saw its stock jump yesterday, as a U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte affirmed a 2008 decision against Hynix Semiconductor.  According to CNN Money, shares of Rambus rose 9% after it was decided that Rambus wasn’t required to disclose its plan to file patents to a standards group that included Hynix.

The standards group is known as Joint Electron Device Engineering Council, or JEDEC.  Rambus was a member of the group from 1991 to 1996, and it was being sued for patents it had filed after leaving the organization.  The original suit, filed in 2000, accused Rambus of fraud and asked the court to invalidate the patents.

Rambus was exonerated of fraud charges in March 2008, and in the most recent ruling the judge stated, “Consistent with the jury’s finding, the court agrees that Rambus made no misrepresentations and uttered no deceptive half-truths to JEDEC and its members.”

This decision has been the highlight of an otherwise dismal year in the court room for Rambus.  In January, a judge ruled that Rambus could not enforce 12 of its patents against Micron.  Then last month, a judge in California suspended proceedings in the company’s infringement lawsuits against several chip makers.

Dell Challenges ‘Netbook’ & Accuses Psion of Fraud

In 2000, Psion trademarked the word “Netbook,” and has aggressively defended the word since.  Recently, Psion sent out cease and desist letters to stop sites from using the term, and Psion even convinced Google to remove netbook from its Ad Words advertising program.  But according to CrunchGear, Dell has issued a petition to cancel Psion’s trademark.

Dell is claiming that Psion has abandoned the Netbook trademark, because Psion does not currently offer laptop computers under the trademark.  Also, Dell states that Psion does not intend to resume use of the trademarked name.

Dell also cited “Genericness” of the netbook term, since many companies now make netbooks as well.  Psion is also accused of fraud, as Dell states that a senior product manager for Psion claimed they had been actively using the term for its notebook computers, even though that was not the case.

It’ll be interesting to see how this legal battle plays out, especially since Psion’s netbook has not been on sale for some years.  Also, since other companies have carefully avoided the netbook term, the outcome of the case may effect the names of future products.