Ich habe Rambus bei 54 Euro gekauft und bei 560 Euro verkauft
(heutige Beträge - durch 4 - 13,50 und 140),
bin also schon etwas länger dabei. Was ich an Rambus gut finde,
sind realistische Prognosen, kaum insider sales und bisher kein
Anlegerbetrug.
Wie es nun die nächsten Wochen weitergeht, weiss ich natürlich nicht.
Aber ich verliere lieber mein Geld, weil ein Unternehmen an das ich glaube bei Gericht unterliegt, als es mir von Betrügern á la EMtv oder Sunburst
vernichten zu lassen.
Anbei ein aktueller Bericht.
by the way, baanbruch does not own a computer that has RDRAM.
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Monday May 7, 12:49 pm Eastern Time
MotleyFool.com - Fool News
Rambus Loses Round One
By Tom Jacobs
A trial court judge in Virginia dealt a blow to memory chip technology designer Rambus' (Nasdaq: RMBS - news) patent infringement suit against Germany-based Infineon (NYSE: IFX - news) Friday.
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The judge threw out Rambus's remaining three counts -- one had been previously thrown out -- in the case, watched closely by investors in the computer chip sector. Rambus stock tanked almost 20% on the news to close Friday at $14.60, and trades lower this morning.
"We are disappointed with the court's decision and plan to appeal the ruling," said Rambus CEO Geoff Tate in a press release. "If today's decision is allowed to stand, all companies that innovate risk having their intellectual property rights unjustly expropriated."
Infineon has not commented on the ruling.
All eyes on the trial
The case has riveted investors, armchair patent lawyers, and the financial media. Internet stock discussion boards, including The Motley Fool's Rambus board, have exploded with news and commentary, featuring dispatches from investors attending the trial in Richmond, Va. At stake is real money: Rambus' cut of a few percentage points of the DRAM market, estimated between $28 billion and $38 billion this year, and $50 billion to $76 billion by 2005.
Rambus, whose trailing 12-month revenues stand at $110 million, earns royalties at rates of about 0.75% to 3.5% from semiconductor manufacturers who license its technology for products they sell to original equipment manufacturers. In two prominent examples, RDRAM is used in Sony's (NYSE: SNE - news) PlayStation2 video game console and in products that use Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC - news) new Pentium 4 microprocessor.
Infineon, the Siemens chipmaking spinoff, holds a license to produce RDRAM, Rambus' patented computer memory advance that speeds up communication between the computer's logic integrated circuits and memory. But the current legal battle concerns Infineon's production of SDRAM and DDR SDRAM memory products.
Rambus asserts that current memory standard SDRAM, and competing DDR SDRAM, use Rambus patented technology and therefore require licenses to use. Eight memory manufacturers, including Samsung and Elpida -- a joint venture of NEC (Nasdaq: NIPNY - news) and Hitachi (NYSE: HIT - news) -- have agreed and signed contracts to pay Rambus royalties, revealed in the Infineon trial to be 0.75% for SDRAM and 3.5% for DDR SDRAM. (RDRAM royalty rates are still secret, and estimated in the 2%-2.5% range.) When Infineon demurred, Rambus sued.
Micron Technology (NYSE: MU - news) and Hyundai have also refused to pay SDRAM and DDR SDRAM royalties to Rambus, and are locked in legal fights with the company.
Why the loss?
In a patent case, the judge determines construction of the claim -- in this case, the portions of Rambus' patents that define the scope of its rights -- while the jury remains the arbiter of the factual question whether Infineon actually infringed those patents. In this case, Judge Payne's ruling on the scope of Rambus's rights, called a Markman ruling, appeared to adopt Infineon's narrower interpretation of Rambus's claim, sending Rambus's stock from the $40s to the $20s and below.
After the Markman ruling, the burden was on Rambus to allege facts sufficient for a reasonable jury to find infringement. The Judge's decision Friday determined that Rambus did not meets its burden.
Prospects for Rambus' appeal
Greg Carlin, a patent attorney at the law firm of Alston & Bird, and frequent contributor to The Motley Fool discussion boards under the guise of "ElricSeven," says all patent appeals are heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. This specialized appeals court in Washington was created to provide consistency and expertise in the complex area of patent law.
Asked about any patent appeal's chances, Carlin said: "Although no hard statistics are readily available, the number of patent cases overturned on appeal is relatively high. Some sources estimate that about half of all patent cases are overturned by the Federal Circuit. This is probably because of the difficulty of the subject area."
"For Markman hearings," he continued, "the standard of review is de novo. De novo is a lower threshold to be overcome by the losing party than the average patent case. A combination of a high rate of success on appeal with the lowest threshold of review means that the chances of overturning a trial court judge's Markman ruling are pretty good."
Though Carlin had no opinion on the prospects for the specific Markman ruling in Rambus v. Infineon, he said it was the type of case that presented a better chance for reversal than a decision resulting from a complete hearing, such as Amgen's (Nasdaq: AMGN - news) biotech patent infringement case against Transkaryotic Therapies (Nasdaq: TKTX - news).
Meanwhile, the Infineon case continues on the company's counterclaims that Rambus' acts during its participation in JEDEC, a memory chip standards-setting body, should render its patents invalid.
Investors in Rambus may see some short-term turbulence if the stock's current valuation is based not only on expected RDRAM royalties, but those for SDRAM and DDR SDRAM. And of course the legal battles cost big bucks for lawyers and hurt Rambus earnings. It's also uncertain what the current eight licensees will do with royalty payments for SDRAM and DDR SDRAM.
But the long-term prospects for Rambus investors depend upon the adoption of RDRAM and its successors, as well as how the technology stacks up against any new competing computer memory advances.
Tom Jacobs' (TMF Tom9) does not own a computer that has RDRAM. At press time, he owned shares of Rambus, and he tries to be very fair in reporting about the company. To see his stock holdings, view his profile, and check out The Motley Fool's disclosure policy.
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