Rambus could have been an interesting tech producer, sadly they now seem to be admitting defeat and going down the sue everyone's arse off route until someone finally nails them into their coffin. FAIL!

Having destroyed their business by focusing on selling an unpopular, ovepriced and inferior product (RDRAM) they now make money licensing intellectual property for inflated prices.

Except Rambus have a habit of winning their cases. And actually may have a genuine claim over the intellectual property in question. And they didn't try using FUD to extort money from end-users.

Geez...gotta hate these patent-squatting losers who chuck their lawyers out of the pram when everyone says to them: "Actually we don't want to buy your products because they suck!"

IIRC, Rambus has some legitimate patents for some tech they invented, not some stupid over-broad idea, nor something they bought from another company's fire-sale. (Those are the usual sources of discontent towards "patent trolls")

What turns Rambus from aggrieved patent holders into ignoble bastards, is that they deliberately concealed these patents from JEDEC, even though they were JEDEC members.

So when JEDEC set the new standards for DDR, they were under the impression that all the tech in that spec was patent-free. Only months or years later, after *everybody* was making chips with "their" patented bits, did Rambus start suing.

In fact, this is just a new variation on another time-honoured patent-troll scam: The Submarine Patent.

And Rambus have to get going on suing because there are a lot of legal noises about stopping abuse of the patent system. Such abuses as "join a standards body, suggest new tech, quietly patent tech and then leave. Step 3: Profit!!!".

Rambus was suing before SCO did. Rambus started their lawsuits in the 1990's, SCO in 2002.

A leopard can't change its spots. The reason why Rambus lost was because it was proven they secretly patented memory technology that the JEDEC was trying to make royalty free. Naturally, this didn't jive with anybody, including Intel. The pre-Prescott Pentium 4's did much better with Rambus memory, but Intel dumped them as soon as they could when Intel discovered Rambus's true self. I remember Intel's CEO Andy Grove did not have anything nice to say about Rambus. The only reason Rambus survived when SCO did not is because Rambus was used in the PS2.

Rambus today is still litigious. They are following the American dream: to make a lot of money for doing nothing by suing someone else.

Rambus has plenty of cash. They have gigantic sales around the world to high end mission critical systems in defence, biotech and space tech. Their consumer game is over, though.

Nvidia are a good target. Lots of cash, a good bet if you will. They do, though, have a fantastic legal team...and will most likely end up working together through a "forced" outcome.

Guess my next video card will be some version from the Rambus Corp. They seem to have a pretty good record in these lawsuits; definitely plenty of practice.

YOU think you understand Rambus and the litigation and their role in the industry, but everyone one of you has made factually incorrect statements and are doing nothing more than displaying your ignorance and bias on these matters. If you care to educate yourself go to the Rambus message board on www.investorvillage.com. Get a clue.

And to the author of this snide crap piece, YOU ARE NO JOURNALIST that is clear from your blatent bias in your headline. Absolutely DUMB.

Pity the Reg doesn't have a little green symbol for astroturf...