Samsung, Rambus Sue Each Other

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s second-biggest maker of semiconductors, said Friday that it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against computer-chip designer Rambus Inc. one day after the Los Altos, Calif.-based company sued Samsung over the same issue.

The Samsung suit, filed Tuesday in Richmond, Va., was assigned to U.S. District Judge Robert Payne. In March, Payne dismissed Rambus’ patent suit against Infineon Technologies, saying Rambus shouldn’t be allowed to enforce some patents because it had destroyed documents to head off challenges from rivals.

The patents were “previously found unenforceable due to unclean hands by an oral ruling from Judge Payne,” the complaint by South Korea’s Samsung says. Each patent “is tainted by the destruction of relevant documents.”

Rambus sued Samsung for infringement Monday in San Jose, ending a contract due to expire at the end of this month to supply designs for dynamic random access memory chips.

The company will ask to have the Virginia case transferred to San Jose, Rambus General Counsel John Danforth said.

“They’re trying to follow in the footsteps of the Infineon case,” Danforth said. “We think we’ll be able to show it’s a very different case and should be heard in California.”

The suit against Samsung is over the next generation of memory chips. Rambus and Infineon settled before Payne issued an explanation of his decision to dismiss it. Rambus also is suing Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Nanya Technology Corp.