NVIDIA Licenses Rambus Patents, More To Come? (NVDA, RMBS)

This is one of those situations you could have likely expected, particularly since the defendant had already said a settlement was possible.  While this appears to be a settlement, it is actually a license agreement that still seems at least a bit open-ended.  Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ: RMBS) and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) have signed a patent license agreement related to certain memory controllers.

Rambus has granted NVIDIA a patent license for certain of its memory controllers.  he company will receive a 1% royalty rate for its SDR memory controllers.  Rambus will receive a 2% royalty rate for other memory controllers, including DDR, DDR2, DDR3, LPDDR, LPDDR2, GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, and portions of GDDR5 memory controllers.

Under the agreement NVIDIA has granted no licenses to Rambus.  The signed patent license agreement went into effect on August 12, 2010.

What is interesting here is that the press release says, “The parties have not signed any releases of liability, nor dismissed any outstanding litigation between them.”

Most might have expected a release of liability and a dismissal of litigation efforts.  NVIDIA missed its earnings last night and shares are still up 3.5% at $9.28.  Rambus is up 6% at $19.10.

JON C. OGG