Tech Legal Week: Rambus Loses Micron Suit, Class Action Suit against Apple, More

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  Watzman@...

  01/11/09 | Report as spam

  RE: Tech Legal Week: Rambus Loses Micron Suit, Class Action Suit against Apple, More

  Re: "Judge tosses Rambus claims against Micron / It???s never a good idea to destroy documents a judge might want"
  
  No argument on those points. BUT, this case is not anything like that clear.
  
  In this case, first, there is substantial evidence both that the purpose of the document retention program (under which documents not meeting the criteria for retention were to be destroyed) was an ordinary and justified business activity, not targeted at this litigation (see next paragraph; we all have trashcans and shredders, right?) and, second, that there were specific efforts made to preserve documents that might be litigation relevant. Indeed, there is NO evidence that even ONE relevant document was destroyed. It is only speculated that relevant documents may have been destroyed.
  
  But what is really significant in this case is that the document retention program (under which documents not to be retained were destroyed) occurred YEARS before the litigation in question, and also that the litigation itself was initiated not by Rambus but rather by Micron (very much weakening the argument that Rambus destroyed these documents years before the litigation started in anticipation of this litigation).
  
  The ruling of this court in this case is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to other rulings in "Rambus vs. {other parties}" by other courts and the "judicial arm" of other administrative agencies, all based on substantially the exact same facts.
  
  While this matter is now going to have to go to an appeals court and will take at least 2 years to resolve, I think that there is very little chance that the ruling stands, and even less chance that the remedy of making the patents completely unenforceable will stand. See, in particular, the "Aptex" case, in which the appeals court wrote:
  
  "The district court, however, abused its discretion in rendering the patent unenforceable for unclean hands. While unclean hands based on litigation misconduct may serve as a basis for sanctioning the litigant engaging in such conduct, it does not infect, or even affect, the original grant of the property right."
  
  And in this case, as noted above, it is still very much HIGHLY arguable as to whether or not Rambus even had "unclean hands".