Former Rambus GC John Danforth is fighting the perception that he left Rambus a few years back because of litigation setbacks and backdating at the company.
Danforth wrote a long post on a Rambus investor message board decrying the evils of Google search, which he writes turn up negative articles about himself. On the backdating front, Danforth points out that the company’s special litigation committee cleared him of any wrongdoing, a fact Cal Law mentioned in an article in 2007. He also pointed out that some bad results in litigation back then have since been overturned, like the ruling from a Virginia judge finding that Rambus shredded documents in anticipation of litigation. (That whole issue is now back in the news in a different case).
More, more and more, after the jump.
Finally, he says that the real reason he left was because he disagreed with the management’s vision for the company. Danforth said he believed that litigation and licensing was the road to success, while management wasn’t so into that back in 2005 and 2006. “It was these differing viewpoints and related organizational changes (e.g., moving key Rambus licensing lawyers from legal to sales in October, 2005) that set the stage at Rambus for a new GC,” he writes.
From the outside, it’s a little hard to see how Rambus management has ever shied away from litigation, given the multitude of ongoing patent and antitrust cases against a group of memory chip manufacturers like Samsung and Hynix. But there you have it, after a few years of laying low and learning to surf, Danforth’s back in the spotlight.
— Zusha Elinson
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