Rambus has told the US Appeal Court that its document shredding policy shouldn’t affect its patent infringement cases against Micron and Hynix.
Previously, one US Federal court had ruled that its document shredding policy meant that 12 Rambus patents were unenforceable against Micron.
Another US Federal court had had ruled that Rambus’ document shredding policy did not affect Rambus’ patent infringement claim against Hynix and that Hynix should pay $397m in damages to Rambus.
An important point is to decide on the date at which it could be judged reasonable for Rambus to assume that it should preserve documents in the event of a legal case.
In the Micron case the judge decided that date should be 1998; the Hynix judge decided late 1999.
Micron’s lawyer argued that Rambus planned to sue Micron in 1998 and shred documents prior to bringing the case.