Editor's note: There is a small, technology-based enterprise that was founded in the early 1990s and focused on the development of high-speed memory products. As a technology research and development small-scale enterprise, its technology seems promising at that time and has received the help of the giants of the industry. However, over time, it has basically lost its independent technology research and development capabilities after more than 20 years, and relied on the accumulation of existing patents to prosecute all cases.
Everyone should have already guessed the company mentioned earlier. He is Rambus, which is still able to get on the headlines from time to time. As a rising star in the IT industry, his trajectory may be able to become patented. A microcosm of the big companies in the final stages of their life cycle. Of course, the continued existence and profitability of Rambus is an unavoidable, less glorious footnote to the current patent system: when a company cannot continue to promote the development of the market and technology, then he is likely to become the progress of the entire market and other companies. And the stumbling blocks to innovation, and the most important thing is that such companies can continue to maintain eligibility for listing and are fully legal.
The story begins in March 1990. Dr. Mike Farmwald graduated from the University of Illinois and Dr. Mark Horowitz graduated from Stanford University founded Rambus. One month later, the company applied for its first patent. This patent, called Rambus, is a memory bus-related process. Although the application for this patent and all the efforts associated with it eventually ended in failure, the patent that Rambus applied for as the first patent still deserves a book.
After the first two years of hard work, Rambus began to gain some attention and gain certain prestige with its advantages in high-performance memory buses and related controllers. Since then, Rambus has entered its golden age, more precisely the golden period of its own business.
Afterwards, Rambus took a completely new height. Rambus received the full support of industry giant Intel and signed an agreement to become the Pentium 4 processor's memory standard at that time. At this point, Rambus is already a Nasdaq-listed company, and its stock price also reached the peak of the company's history - $ 109.
In early 2000, Rambus released a notice that could completely change the company's track: PC100/133 and DDR SDRAM are based on Rambus patents, so all memory manufacturers must pay licensing fees. The sum of the costs can no longer be ascertained, but it is obviously an astronomical figure.
Afterwards, it became clear to everyone that due to the almost zero production process compatibility of Rambus, it was resisted by most memory manufacturers. In addition, due to its high outrageous selling prices, occasional downtime bugs, and a 2%-4% weak performance boost, its position in the consumer market is also like frost.
Since then, Intel has resolutely abandoned Rambus's DR DRAM standard. However, due to the previous contract, Intel paid a terrible price for its own behavior. Due to the tearing of the contract, Intel had to pay $5-8 million in cash for Rambus every quarter for four consecutive years from the fourth quarter of 2002 (natural season).
On the whole, Rambus still lived reasonably well, despite being mercilessly abandoned by Intel and the stock price languishing. After gaining such a huge wealth through legal means, Rambus also gradually discovered that this may be the company's future path.
It is worth mentioning that at the time, Rambus still retained considerable R&D strength. Although the XDR memory technology developed afterwards has still not gained recognition in the mainstream consumer market, some devices have begun to be adopted and some revenue has been obtained.
After experiencing the pain, Rambus began to learn. Of course not from the technical level but from the legal level. By suing Samsung and other companies for joint pricing manipulation, monopoly, and unfair competition practices, Rambus received compensation of up to $900 million.
The law is a weapon to protect social fairness and justice, but from the development process of Rambus, laws, patents and the resulting lawsuits and compensations are more like drugs. Once they have tasted his sweetness, they want to quit. impossible. After Hynix's (modern) lawsuit ended, Hynix attorney Kenneth Nissly once admitted that "Since 1997, Rambus had been planning to sue the entire DRAM industry." Although we can't guess whether Rambus at that time really had such a "far-sighted vision," it is undeniable that Rambus has become a "vampire" in the entire DRAM industry and even the semiconductor industry.
After rambling in the DRAM industry, Rambus sent his lawyer's letter to more and more companies.
With the rise of mobile terminals, a number of semiconductor upstarts have also been rapidly formed, including Broadcom, Freescale, LSI, MediaTek, NVIDIA, and STMicroelectronics. Since the mobile terminal also needs to use DDR-standard memory and controllers, Rambus's lawyers follow. Although some of these lawsuits have not yet ended, it is obvious that such a wide range of attacks will also make Rambus gain something.
As of mid-July 2012, Rambus has a total of 23 ongoing patent litigation cases in the United States. This number ranks second among technology companies. The first is Apple.
Due to Rambus' "arrogance", the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which specializes in patents and trademark management, could not sit still. In early 2012, the USPTO announced the abolition of Rambus's three important memory technology patents. From an economic point of view, this decision will, to a certain extent, strike against Rambus's "profitability" ability.
Why is Rambus so all-powerful? Throughout the Rambus patent family, it includes almost all memory, including DDR, DDR2, DDR3, Mobile DDR, LPDDR, LPDDR2, GDDR3 memory and controller related technologies, which is almost all memory technology in the consumer field. In addition, some memory control technologies for graphics processors, media processors, communications processors, chipsets, and other chips are also available in Rambus's patent library. It can be said that almost all electronic devices requiring memory may be included in Rambus's lawyer letter express coverage; in other words, if you are a large semiconductor company, it is almost impossible to avoid Rambus.
Why does Rambus, which has almost lost its research and development capabilities, own so many patents? This is because DDR SDRAM itself includes Rambus's patented technology, and the contemporary memory technology that comes out through standard revisions and upgrades once again cannot escape Rambus's scope. As long as the semiconductor industry is still producing and using DRAM, then Rambus will likely continue to live undisturbed, whether DDR4 or DDR5.
In terms of company operations, Rambus is quite smart. Since its main business has changed from the initial memory technology research and development to the current patent licensing and rights protection, Rambus has been able to move lightly to maintain the company at a relatively small scale, further reducing the company's operating expenses. It can be said that the biggest cost of the company lies in the prosecution, evidence, and legal fees.
On the other hand, in order to ensure that the company will still have "profitability" in the future, Rambus will often acquire very high-potential, small-scale companies with core technologies at very low prices.
Rambus's idea is simple: patents and technology are actually like drilling holes in wooden boards. Instead of spending a lot of money and energy drilling holes in the thickest areas of the board, it is better to drill a lot of holes in the most important and thin areas of the boards, and then wait. Someone fell.
At present, we can barely find Rambus's new technology in Rambus's homepage news column. The entire layout has been filled with information about Rambus's signing of a patent licensing agreement with XX. Through the acquisition, Rambus has mastered some technologies in LED backlighting, lighting, and anti-piracy. It is foreseeable that in a few years, these areas may also become Rambus ranch.
On July 26, 2012, Rambus announced its financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2012.
In the second quarter ended June 30th, Rambus achieved a revenue of 56.2 million U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 15%, mainly due to a decrease in contract revenue, a lower royalties for specific authorized holders, and an expired patent licensing agreement. 11%, first because there was a one-time patent licensing agreement for TSMC in the first quarter, and secondly because the license fees paid by the semiconductor industry were lower.
Throughout the first half of the year, Rambus’s revenue was $119.1 million, a year-on-year decrease of 8%, for the same reason as above. In terms of profitability, Rambus posted a loss of 32.2 million US dollars (29 cents per share) in the second quarter, an increase of 204% year-on-year, an increase of 15% from the previous quarter, and a cumulative loss of 60.1 million US dollars in the first half of the year, an increase of 3.1 times year-on-year.
Rambus currently owns cash, cash equivalents, exchangeable securities of $203.2 million, and a quarterly decrease of $29.3 million.
In order to stop this "shameful" revenue decline, Rambus has previously announced the appointment of Ronald Black as president and chief executive officer, replacing former Harold Hughes.
Rambus stated that Black had previously served as CEO of MobiWire (formerly Sagem Wireless) and several other companies. He also served as executive vice president of Agere Systems and held senior management positions at Motorola and IBM Microelectronics.
The new CEO was hoping to revive Rambus as the company lost in litigation last November. The company lost $3.95 billion in allegations that Micron Technology and Hynix Semiconductor had conspired to prevent their chips from becoming industry standards. The jury verdict on that day caused the stock price of the company to plummet by 61%.
Rambus Chairman J. In a subsequent statement, Thomas Bentley pointed out that Black has extensive experience in managing complex companies at all levels and helping them to achieve their respective goals, which makes him a great candidate for the next phase of leadership for Rambus.
Just as the new officials took office for three fires, the new president apparently will launch a new round of offensive in the company's main business areas. It seems that some companies will have to deal with Rambus against the court.
postscript
Under the current world-wide patent system, companies such as Rambus can be said to be sad. Patents were originally designed to protect those companies that are brave enough for R&D and investment to get the rewards they deserve. However, due to the unavoidable problems of this system, some companies that have been unable to promote the market and advancement of science and technology have become patents based on the patents they have acquired. Other obstacles, and lived a "free-for-all" rich life.
However, at present, this issue is still unsolvable. Therefore, for quite some time to come, we will still see companies like Rambus playing in the courtroom and in the media headlines.
Lastly, attach company names that have signed licensing agreements or are in the process of litigation with Rambus: Intel, AMD, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, NVIDIA, Samsung, Hynix, NEC, Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba, Micron, Infineon, Kingston, Mitsubishi , Broadcom, Freescale, STMicroelectronics, TSMC, UMC, SLI, MediaTek...
Everyone should have already guessed the company mentioned earlier. He is Rambus, which is still able to get on the headlines from time to time. As a rising star in the IT industry, his trajectory may be able to become patented. A microcosm of the big companies in the final stages of their life cycle. Of course, the continued existence and profitability of Rambus is an unavoidable, less glorious footnote to the current patent system: when a company cannot continue to promote the development of the market and technology, then he is likely to become the progress of the entire market and other companies. And the stumbling blocks to innovation, and the most important thing is that such companies can continue to maintain eligibility for listing and are fully legal.
The story begins in March 1990. Dr. Mike Farmwald graduated from the University of Illinois and Dr. Mark Horowitz graduated from Stanford University founded Rambus. One month later, the company applied for its first patent. This patent, called Rambus, is a memory bus-related process. Although the application for this patent and all the efforts associated with it eventually ended in failure, the patent that Rambus applied for as the first patent still deserves a book.
After the first two years of hard work, Rambus began to gain some attention and gain certain prestige with its advantages in high-performance memory buses and related controllers. Since then, Rambus has entered its golden age, more precisely the golden period of its own business.
Afterwards, Rambus took a completely new height. Rambus received the full support of industry giant Intel and signed an agreement to become the Pentium 4 processor's memory standard at that time. At this point, Rambus is already a Nasdaq-listed company, and its stock price also reached the peak of the company's history - $ 109.
In early 2000, Rambus released a notice that could completely change the company's track: PC100/133 and DDR SDRAM are based on Rambus patents, so all memory manufacturers must pay licensing fees. The sum of the costs can no longer be ascertained, but it is obviously an astronomical figure.
Afterwards, it became clear to everyone that due to the almost zero production process compatibility of Rambus, it was resisted by most memory manufacturers. In addition, due to its high outrageous selling prices, occasional downtime bugs, and a 2%-4% weak performance boost, its position in the consumer market is also like frost.
Since then, Intel has resolutely abandoned Rambus's DR DRAM standard. However, due to the previous contract, Intel paid a terrible price for its own behavior. Due to the tearing of the contract, Intel had to pay $5-8 million in cash for Rambus every quarter for four consecutive years from the fourth quarter of 2002 (natural season).
On the whole, Rambus still lived reasonably well, despite being mercilessly abandoned by Intel and the stock price languishing. After gaining such a huge wealth through legal means, Rambus also gradually discovered that this may be the company's future path.
It is worth mentioning that at the time, Rambus still retained considerable R&D strength. Although the XDR memory technology developed afterwards has still not gained recognition in the mainstream consumer market, some devices have begun to be adopted and some revenue has been obtained.
After experiencing the pain, Rambus began to learn. Of course not from the technical level but from the legal level. By suing Samsung and other companies for joint pricing manipulation, monopoly, and unfair competition practices, Rambus received compensation of up to $900 million.
The law is a weapon to protect social fairness and justice, but from the development process of Rambus, laws, patents and the resulting lawsuits and compensations are more like drugs. Once they have tasted his sweetness, they want to quit. impossible. After Hynix's (modern) lawsuit ended, Hynix attorney Kenneth Nissly once admitted that "Since 1997, Rambus had been planning to sue the entire DRAM industry." Although we can't guess whether Rambus at that time really had such a "far-sighted vision," it is undeniable that Rambus has become a "vampire" in the entire DRAM industry and even the semiconductor industry.
After rambling in the DRAM industry, Rambus sent his lawyer's letter to more and more companies.
With the rise of mobile terminals, a number of semiconductor upstarts have also been rapidly formed, including Broadcom, Freescale, LSI, MediaTek, NVIDIA, and STMicroelectronics. Since the mobile terminal also needs to use DDR-standard memory and controllers, Rambus's lawyers follow. Although some of these lawsuits have not yet ended, it is obvious that such a wide range of attacks will also make Rambus gain something.
As of mid-July 2012, Rambus has a total of 23 ongoing patent litigation cases in the United States. This number ranks second among technology companies. The first is Apple.
Due to Rambus' "arrogance", the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which specializes in patents and trademark management, could not sit still. In early 2012, the USPTO announced the abolition of Rambus's three important memory technology patents. From an economic point of view, this decision will, to a certain extent, strike against Rambus's "profitability" ability.
Why is Rambus so all-powerful? Throughout the Rambus patent family, it includes almost all memory, including DDR, DDR2, DDR3, Mobile DDR, LPDDR, LPDDR2, GDDR3 memory and controller related technologies, which is almost all memory technology in the consumer field. In addition, some memory control technologies for graphics processors, media processors, communications processors, chipsets, and other chips are also available in Rambus's patent library. It can be said that almost all electronic devices requiring memory may be included in Rambus's lawyer letter express coverage; in other words, if you are a large semiconductor company, it is almost impossible to avoid Rambus.
Why does Rambus, which has almost lost its research and development capabilities, own so many patents? This is because DDR SDRAM itself includes Rambus's patented technology, and the contemporary memory technology that comes out through standard revisions and upgrades once again cannot escape Rambus's scope. As long as the semiconductor industry is still producing and using DRAM, then Rambus will likely continue to live undisturbed, whether DDR4 or DDR5.
In terms of company operations, Rambus is quite smart. Since its main business has changed from the initial memory technology research and development to the current patent licensing and rights protection, Rambus has been able to move lightly to maintain the company at a relatively small scale, further reducing the company's operating expenses. It can be said that the biggest cost of the company lies in the prosecution, evidence, and legal fees.
On the other hand, in order to ensure that the company will still have "profitability" in the future, Rambus will often acquire very high-potential, small-scale companies with core technologies at very low prices.
Rambus's idea is simple: patents and technology are actually like drilling holes in wooden boards. Instead of spending a lot of money and energy drilling holes in the thickest areas of the board, it is better to drill a lot of holes in the most important and thin areas of the boards, and then wait. Someone fell.
At present, we can barely find Rambus's new technology in Rambus's homepage news column. The entire layout has been filled with information about Rambus's signing of a patent licensing agreement with XX. Through the acquisition, Rambus has mastered some technologies in LED backlighting, lighting, and anti-piracy. It is foreseeable that in a few years, these areas may also become Rambus ranch.
On July 26, 2012, Rambus announced its financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2012.
In the second quarter ended June 30th, Rambus achieved a revenue of 56.2 million U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 15%, mainly due to a decrease in contract revenue, a lower royalties for specific authorized holders, and an expired patent licensing agreement. 11%, first because there was a one-time patent licensing agreement for TSMC in the first quarter, and secondly because the license fees paid by the semiconductor industry were lower.
Throughout the first half of the year, Rambus’s revenue was $119.1 million, a year-on-year decrease of 8%, for the same reason as above. In terms of profitability, Rambus posted a loss of 32.2 million US dollars (29 cents per share) in the second quarter, an increase of 204% year-on-year, an increase of 15% from the previous quarter, and a cumulative loss of 60.1 million US dollars in the first half of the year, an increase of 3.1 times year-on-year.
Rambus currently owns cash, cash equivalents, exchangeable securities of $203.2 million, and a quarterly decrease of $29.3 million.
In order to stop this "shameful" revenue decline, Rambus has previously announced the appointment of Ronald Black as president and chief executive officer, replacing former Harold Hughes.
Rambus stated that Black had previously served as CEO of MobiWire (formerly Sagem Wireless) and several other companies. He also served as executive vice president of Agere Systems and held senior management positions at Motorola and IBM Microelectronics.
The new CEO was hoping to revive Rambus as the company lost in litigation last November. The company lost $3.95 billion in allegations that Micron Technology and Hynix Semiconductor had conspired to prevent their chips from becoming industry standards. The jury verdict on that day caused the stock price of the company to plummet by 61%.
Rambus Chairman J. In a subsequent statement, Thomas Bentley pointed out that Black has extensive experience in managing complex companies at all levels and helping them to achieve their respective goals, which makes him a great candidate for the next phase of leadership for Rambus.
Just as the new officials took office for three fires, the new president apparently will launch a new round of offensive in the company's main business areas. It seems that some companies will have to deal with Rambus against the court.
postscript
Under the current world-wide patent system, companies such as Rambus can be said to be sad. Patents were originally designed to protect those companies that are brave enough for R&D and investment to get the rewards they deserve. However, due to the unavoidable problems of this system, some companies that have been unable to promote the market and advancement of science and technology have become patents based on the patents they have acquired. Other obstacles, and lived a "free-for-all" rich life.
However, at present, this issue is still unsolvable. Therefore, for quite some time to come, we will still see companies like Rambus playing in the courtroom and in the media headlines.
Lastly, attach company names that have signed licensing agreements or are in the process of litigation with Rambus: Intel, AMD, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, NVIDIA, Samsung, Hynix, NEC, Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba, Micron, Infineon, Kingston, Mitsubishi , Broadcom, Freescale, STMicroelectronics, TSMC, UMC, SLI, MediaTek...
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