Not content with suing practically every memory maker under the sun, Rambus has now set its sights on firms that make memory controllers. Late yesterday, the company announced that it filed a lawsuit against Nvidia for patent infringement.
According to Rambus' official press release, the lawsuit alleges that Nvidia infringes on no less than 17 Rambus patents with memory controllers that work with six types of memory, from old-fashioned non-DDR SDRAM to DDR3, with GDDR and GDDR3 thrown in the mix for good measure. The lawsuit covers Nvidia's graphics processors, chipsets, media communication processors, multimedia applications processors, and "other products from at least six NVIDIA product lines."
In the press release, Rambus Senior VP and General Counsel Tom Lavelle says his company has "diligently attempted" to get Nvidia to sign a licensing agreement for "more than six years." As Nvidia continues to release new products, Lavelle adds, the firm "infringes more and more" Rambus patents. Rambus wants both damages and an injunction to stop the infringement—presumably by pulling Nvidia products off store shelves.
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