Rambus and Samsung have ended their hundred years’ war over patents and antitrust issues. Samsung will pay Rambus $900 million over the next five years to settle their many many legal differences.
Rambus, a tiny tech Los Altos company that licenses its patents, has long accused Korean giant Samsung and other big semiconductor manufacturers of unfairly squashing its business and infringing its patents. Lawsuits have been filed all over our fair country and in nearly every venue possible. Samsung had accused Rambus of stealing its ideas from industry meetings and setting a patent ambush for the big companies.
A Rambus press release said that Samsung will invest $200 million in Rambus stock, make an initial payment of $200 million and a quarterly payment of about $25M for the next five years. The two sides were scheduled to go trial in antitrust case in San Francisco very soon. The settlement starts a new chapter for Rambus and Samsung, which have spent millions on lawyers over the past decade. No doubt their law firms (chief among them, lately, Munger Tolles & Olson and Weil Gotshal) will be missing the formerly unending litigation more than Rambus.
— Zusha Elinson
Now that is a BIG settlement for a small company.
Posted by: Dean McAdams | January 20, 2010 at 09:50 AM