Having destroyed their business by focusing on selling an unpopular, ovepriced and inferior product (RDRAM) they now make money licensing intellectual property for inflated prices.

Except Rambus have a habit of winning their cases. And actually may have a genuine claim over the intellectual property in question. And they didn't try using FUD to extort money from end-users.

IIRC, Rambus has some legitimate patents for some tech they invented, not some stupid over-broad idea, nor something they bought from another company's fire-sale. (Those are the usual sources of discontent towards "patent trolls")

What turns Rambus from aggrieved patent holders into ignoble bastards, is that they deliberately concealed these patents from JEDEC, even though they were JEDEC members.

So when JEDEC set the new standards for DDR, they were under the impression that all the tech in that spec was patent-free. Only months or years later, after *everybody* was making chips with "their" patented bits, did Rambus start suing.

In fact, this is just a new variation on another time-honoured patent-troll scam: The Submarine Patent.

And Rambus have to get going on suing because there are a lot of legal noises about stopping abuse of the patent system. Such abuses as "join a standards body, suggest new tech, quietly patent tech and then leave. Step 3: Profit!!!".

Rambus has plenty of cash. They have gigantic sales around the world to high end mission critical systems in defence, biotech and space tech. Their consumer game is over, though.

Nvidia are a good target. Lots of cash, a good bet if you will. They do, though, have a fantastic legal team...and will most likely end up working together through a "forced" outcome.

Guess my next video card will be some version from the Rambus Corp. They seem to have a pretty good record in these lawsuits; definitely plenty of practice.

Pity the Reg doesn't have a little green symbol for astroturf...