Hynix hails U.S. ruling on Rambus case

Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, on Thursday welcomed a U.S. jury’s decision to reject Rambus Inc.’s antitrust allegation against the Korean chipmaker.

On Wednesday, a San Francisco jury ruled that Hynix and Micron Technology Inc., a U.S. chipmaker, did not engage in joint illegal actions to prevent Rambus from expanding in the semiconductor market.

“We welcome the jury’s decision,” Kwon Oh-chul, the CEO at Hynix, said in a statement.

The latest ruling clears the possibility of making a damage payment to Rambus, in an amount that could have reached as much as 1.2 billion.

“It significantly clears uncertainties for the company,” the CEO said.

Rambus, a Sunnyvale, California-based company that licenses its technology to chipmakers, filed the complaint in 2004 against Hynix, Micron and Samsung Electronics Co., accusing the three chipmakers of illegally colluding to keep Rambus’ technology from taking hold in the market.

Samsung was dropped from the case after reaching a settlement outside the court with Rambus last year. The Korean tech behemoth, the world’s top memory chipmaker, agreed to pay Rambus $900 million through 2015.

Hynix and Micron argued that any failure of Rambus to convince chipmakers to license its technology was because its technology was flawed and incurred high costs in chip productions, not because the chipmakers colluded behind the curtain.

Rambus told the U.S. media that it will appeal. Hynix expressed confidence even for future trials.

Hynix and Rambus are locked in another patent lawsuit. In May, Hynix secured a favorable ruling in a U.S. court that rejected Rambus’ claim that Hynix infringed upon its chip patents. 

(Yonhap News)