FTC lawyers seek appeal in Rambus antitrust ruling

Staff lawyers at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are appealing an administrative judge's decision to strike down antitrust charges against Rambus Inc.

On Friday, the FTC's Web site published a notice filed Monday by a lawyer at the FTC's Bureau of Competition, saying the bureau intends to appeal a decision by an FTC administrative judge. In February, Judge Stephen J. McGuire dismissed FTC charges that Rambus tried to unfairly monopolize the memory-chip market.

FTC commissioners will now decide whether to grant the appeal, according to an FTC spokeswoman.

The FTC sued Rambus, of Los Altos, California, in June 2002, charging the company with violating federal antitrust laws by engaging in a pattern of anticompetitive acts and practices that served to deceive an industry-wide standard-setting organization, resulting in adverse effects on competition and consumers.

According to the FTC, Rambus from 1992 to 1995 took part in standards-setting activity regarding SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) technology with the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council Solid State Technology Association (JEDEC), but did not disclose that it had also filed for patents to cover technologies involved in the standard.

Rambus has said that it complied with JEDEC's rules and that it filed a patent application for its memory technology in 1990, after which it was invited to join the group to develop a related standard. Several chip makers have licensed Rambus' patents, others have challenged the validity of Rambus' patents in court.