Rambus awarded $307 million patent damages

Rambus has announced that the jury in its patent infringement trial against Hynix Semiconductor has found that all Rambus patent claims at issue in the trial are valid and infringed.

The jury awarded Rambus infringement damages in the amount of $306.9 million, which represent compensation only for that portion of Hynix’s SDRAM, DDR SDRAM and DDR2 memory products sold in the United States. The damage award covered Hynix sales between June 2000 and the end of 2005. This award does not yet include any pre-judgment interest.

Rambus, a chip technology licensing company,  has also asked for permanent injunctive relief against Hynix to stop the manufacture, use, sale, or import of infringing Hynix memory products. The issue of an injunction will be addressed in future proceedings and will likely await resolution of a third phase of the Hynix case, currently expected to be tried this summer, that addresses certain Hynix counterclaims. Those Hynix counterclaims include challenges to the enforceability of Rambus patents and allegations that Rambus defamed DDR SDRAM or otherwise impeded market adoption of DDR SDRAM.