Brussels, 09/12/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 9 December, the European Commission adopted a decision rendering legally binding commitments offered by Rambus Inc that in particular put a cap on its royalty rates for certain patents for dynamic random access memory (DRAMS) chips. The Commission initially had concerns that Rambus may have infringed EU rules on the abuse of a dominant market position by claiming abusive royalties for the use of these patents. The Commission's decision confirms that it now considers the commitments are adequate to address these competition concerns.
ICT components that are the subject of this decision are sued to temporarily store data. The JEDEC, the US-based standard setting organisation, developed an industry-wide standard for DRAMs. DRAMs in line with JEDEC standards account for about 95% of the market and are used in almost all personal computers.
On 30 July 2007, the Commission sent Rambus a statement of objections setting out its preliminary view that Rambus may have abused its dominant position in the market for DRAMs. In particular, the Commission was concerned that Rambus had engaged in a so-called “patent ambush” intentionally concealing that it had patents and patent applications which were relevant to technology used in the JEDEC standard, and subsequently claiming royalties for those patents.
To address the Commission's concerns, Rambus has committed to put a worldwide cap on its royalty rates for products compliant with the JEDEC standards for five years. As part of the overall package, Rambus agreed to charge zero royalties for the SDE and DDR chip standards that were adopted when Rambus was a JEDEC member, in combination with a maximum royalty rate of 1.5% for the later generations of JEDEC DRAM standards (DDR2 and DDR3), which is substantially lower than the 3.5% Rambus is charging for DDR.
On 12 June 2009, the Commission consulted interested parties on Rambus' proposed commitments. In the light of comments received, the Commission asked Rambus to clarify a number of issues, such as that whereby all relevant current and future standards are covered and the sale of patents to a third party would not affect the commitments. The Commission has concluded that the commitments in their final form, as modified by Rambus, are adequate to meet the competition concerns expressed in the statement of objections. In a press release, the Commission underlines that “standards bodies have a responsibility to design clear rules that ensure the standard-setting process takes place in a non-discriminatory, open and transparent way and hence reduce the risk of competition problems, such as patent ambushes”. On this point, speaking on Wednesday 9 December during a press conference, European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes looked at the antitrust guidelines on horizontal agreements and said she intended to improve the existing chapter on standardisation. Ms Kroes went on to specify that the draft text would be ready and put to public consultation in early 2010. (O.L. / transl.jl)