Rambus has prevailed in an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but only in so far as the case has been sent for re-trial.

The US Federal Trade Commission had ruled that Rambus intentionally deceived a JEDEC committee setting standards for DRAMs by withholding details of its patents from the committee.

If disclosed, then Rambus would have been obliged to cap royalty demands based on these patents.

The Columbia court came to the conclusion that there was insufficient evidence that Rambus had failed to disclose patents and that, even if it had deliberately deceived JEDEC, nonetheless that would not have had an anti-competitive effect or demonstrated that Rambus had tried to establish a monopoly.

The allegation that Rambus had deceived JEDEC arose about a decade ago and have now been adjudged by various courts with differing results.

The new decision passes the matter back to the FTC for them to hold a retrial. If they do have a re-trial, which is up to them, then that decision can be appealed again to the various courts in the US appeal structure up to the Supreme Court.

Rambus is currently involved in suing most of its main potential customers: Samsung, Micron Technology, Hynix and Nanya.

See also: Rambus Set For Another Decade Of Litigation [Mannerisms blog]

See also: Q5 interview - Harold Hughes, Rambus
Harold Hughes, CEO of memory interface company Rambus, reveals his thoughts on whether Rambus suffers from its litigious reputation, the development of Flash interfaces and the miss-statements on stock options.