Rambus wins ruling in antitrust patent case

A U.S. appeals court Tuesday overturned a Federal Trade Commission order that had accused Rambus Inc. of antitrust violations, the second court win in a month for the chip maker.

The FTC order said Rambus failed to tell a standard-setting organization -- JEDEC, short for Joint Electron Device Engineering Committee -- about its patented technologies while advocating those technologies as the new standard for computer chips.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned an FTC order that had said the failure to disclose the patents constituted a violation of antitrust law and had ordered Rambus in February 2007 to stop collecting some patent royalties.

The FTC amended that order in March 2007 to allow the royalties to be collected but put into escrow. “We think it’s a very big deal. Obviously we’re very pleased with the ruling,” said general counsel Tom Lavelle of Rambus, which develops and licenses technology used by computer chip makers.

“What we’re really looking to do is enforce our intellectual property rights against a group of manufacturers who want to use our intellectual property . . . without paying for it,” he said.

FTC spokeswoman Nancy Judy said no decision had been made on an appeal. “We’re reviewing the court’s opinion,” she said.

Shares of Rambus rose 65 cents, or 2.9%, to $23.19.

The appeals court said that the FTC erred in acting on its conclusion that Rambus failed to disclose the patents either to gain a monopoly by having its technology set as the new standard or to avoid having limits put on its royalties, as often happens when technology is chosen as the new standard.