Rambus has filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Nvidia for alleged patent infringement.

Rambus' complaint (pdf), filed towards the end of last last week, claims that a number of Nvidia products with memory controllers for SDR, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR, and GDDR3 SDRAM infringe 17 Rambus patents.

The accused products in the complaint include chipsets, graphics processors, media communication processors, multimedia applications processors, and other products from at least six Nvidia product lines.

Rambus is seeking injunctive relief barring the infringement, contributory infringement, and inducement to infringe the Rambus patents, as well as monetary damages.

"For more than six years, we have diligently attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with Nvidia, but our good faith efforts have been to no avail," said Tom Lavelle, senior VP and general counsel at Rambus, in a statement.

"Graphics and multimedia products require leading-edge memory performance, and as Nvidia advances its product portfolio, it infringes more and more of our patents. We are left with no other recourse than litigation to protect and seek fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions. Nevertheless, we hope to continue discussions with Nvidia to reach a negotiated settlement."

Nvidia did not immediately return calls for comment from Electronic News, our sister site. The suit follows news from Nvidia last week that on a die/packaging product failure issue, it would face a $150 million to $200 million charge in its fiscal Q2.

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News - Electronic News