Rambus cries conspiracy
"From substantial written evidence already in the public record, we believe that these memory manufacturers colluded illegally, thereby limiting consumer choice and depriving our RDRAM products of the opportunity to compete fairly in the marketplace," says John Danforth, senior vice president and general counsel for Rambus. "While we cannot change the past, we have a duty to our stockholders to respond appropriately to this evidence, which we are doing today."
The 36-page complaint filed today relies in substantial part on evidence obtained through a US Federal Trade Commission proceeding and asserts four causes of action:
Micron Technology responded by saying that it had not seen the suit but stated it would defend any lawsuit vigorously.
"Micron builds products to meet the demands of its customers," says Dave Parker, Micron’s director of Corporate Communications. "Rambus failed in the marketplace because of excessive manufacturing costs and minimal RDRAM demand. Several memory manufacturers, including the world’s largest, continue to produce RDRAM products sufficient to meet its limited, world wide market demand. It is unfortunate that Rambus is trying to blame the market failure of its RDRAM technology on others, like Micron, who ultimately responded to marketplace demands."
Parker adds: "We believe Rambus is attempting to deflect attention away from the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) ongoing suit against Rambus for alleged antitrust violations."
In its lawsuit against Rambus, the FTC has alleged that Rambus intentionally deceived others in the DRAM industry, including Micron, to subvert the JEDEC open-industry standard-setting organisation. The FTC has alleged that Rambus, as part of its anticompetitive scheme, deliberately failed to disclose critical information to the standards group in an attempt to gain a monopoly over the DRAM industry and extort exorbitant royalties from DRAM manufacturers and consumers.
