Hyundai Electronics America and parent company Hyundai Industries Co. Ltd. of Seoul, South Korea, filed suit against Rambus on Wednesday.
Hyundai, which filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., follows hard in the footsteps of Micron Technology Inc., which slapped Rambus with an antitrust suit of its own on Tuesday.
Hyundai's suit seeks to convince the court to issue an order declaring certain Rambus chip-memory patents invalid and unenforceable.
Micron, which filed suit in United States District Court in Delaware, takes it a step further.
Along with other requests, Micron is asking the court to declare that Rambus has monopolized the U.S. market for SDRAM and to prevent the company from continuing to do so in the future.
That suit asserts Rambus (rmbs) violated federal antitrust laws. Aside from alleging that some Rambus patents are invalid or unenforceable, Micron (mu) has also accused Rambus of breach of contract and fraud.
The two suits, challenge Rambus' claims to rights to certain synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM) technologies. They have the potential to seriously damage Rambus, because the company gets all of its revenue from licensing memory technology such as its Rambus Direct RAM (RDRAM).
Micron is also asking the courts to prevent Rambus from enforcing the patents listed in its suits and, at the same time, award royalty-free licenses to those patents. Hyundai seeks the same decision and award of royalty-free licenses.
In addition, Micron seeks compensatory damages, attorney's fees and court costs.
Rambus, which responded with statements addressing both suits, declares it will vigorously defend its intellectual property.
The company responded to the Hyundai suit with a statement that read, in part:
"Rambus had initiated negotiations with Hyundai to license the use of Rambus' intellectual property ... in SDRAMs and DDR (double data rate) SDRAMs. In contrast to Rambus' preference to negotiate and settle amicably, Hyundai abruptly cut off further discussion with the commencement of litigation. Rambus is preparing a response to Hyundai's allegations. Rambus expects to prevail in this litigation and to be fairly compensated for the use of its IP."
Rambus issued a similar statement Tuesday in response to the Micron suit:
"Rambus initiated negotiations with Micron to license Rambus' intellectual property for use in SDRAM and DDR SDRAMs. Rather than negotiate, Micron chose to litigate. Rambus is preparing a response to Micron's allegations. Rambus expects to prevail in this litigation and to be fairly compensated for the use of its IP."
The price of Rambus' stock was down about 5 percent on Wednesday afternoon.
Rambus has sought to use the legal system to its advantage, as well.
The company, in enforcing its patent claims, also sued Infineon Technologies (see: "Rambus unleashes chip patent warfare"). Rambus did, however, convince Toshiba Corp. and Oki Electric to license its SDRAM and DDR SDRAM technologies. The Infineon suit is still in progress.
While others settled, Micron's and now Hyundai's legal maneuvers are clearly aimed at heading Rambus off at the pass.
"What our complaint alleges is that Rambus violated federal antitrust law and that some of their patents are invalid or unenforceable," said Micron spokesman Grant Jones. "We really think that, based on their (Rambus') prior actions, this is the best course of action."
A copy of the Micron suit reviewed by ZDNet News on Tuesday says that on Aug. 18, 2000, just days after Rambus filed suit against Infineon, Micron's CEO, Steven Appleton, received an e-mail from a Rambus representative requesting a "meeting" next month to discuss the patents, presumably Rambus' SDRAM claims.
Micron asserts its belief that this "notice" was similar to ones that Rambus had sent to Infineon and the other SDRAM manufacturers it has sued, meaning that Rambus would present non-negotiable license terms for the Rambus patents highlighted in the suit.
Micron argues that Rambus violated antitrust laws by applying for patents on SDRAM technologies without first informing the Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council.
The JEDEC, as it is called, is a standard-setting body (for things such as SDRAM) for the semiconductor industry.
Micron argues that by joining the JEDEC, Rambus implicitly agreed to inform all the members of the association about new patents that might pertain to SDRAM.
It is these patents that Micron said are invalid or unenforceable.
Micron also claims that joining the JEDEC, as Rambus did, also requires members to license their patents to other JEDEC members either without charge or under "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," if those patents are used as part of a standard.
"Rambus subverted the open standards process so that it could gain monopoly control of the Synchronous DRAM technology and Synchronous DRAM markets," the suit claims.
Micron is asking the court to either prevent Rambus from asserting the patents implicated, or grant Micron a royalty-free license to them.
Micron also claims that its backing of DDR DRAM has also made it a Rambus target. DDR DRAM is the successor to the SDRAM technology and a competitor to the Rambus direct RAM (RDRAM) memory technology.
"Micron is a strong proponent of DDR DRAM memory products. Rambus has indicated that it views DDR DRAMs as a competitive threat to its RDRAM technology," the suit said.
"Rambus has stated that it would not dispute that it was charging higher royalties for DDR DRAMs to head off a potential rival to RDRAM. Micron's endorsement of DDR DRAMs makes it an even more likely target of a patent lawsuit by Rambus," the suit continued.
Rambus is expected to file a response to the Micron suit within about three weeks, Micron officials said. From there, dates for discovery, or gathering of evidence, as well as a trial will be set, assuming the suit is not settled first.
"We expect it to be a rather lengthy process," Jones said.
Additional reporting by Margaret Kane, ZDNet Inter@ctive Investor
