Overview of FTC´s Rambus Decision

Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its opinion in the Matter of Rambus, Inc., Docket No. 9302, and found that the technology company engaged in exclusionary conduct that enabled it to monopolize markets for computer memory technology. The Commission has requested additional briefing of remedial issues before it "exercise[s] its broad remedial powers."

The original FTC complaint against Rambus, Inc. was issued on June 18, 2002, charging that the company monopolized certain computer memory technology markets through a pattern of anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct during its participation in the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC), an industry-wide standard-setting organization for technologies for dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips. The complaint alleged that Rambus concealed its patents and patent applications until after the standards were adopted, and then later brought patent