Rambus v FTC (DC Circuit decision)

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 14, 2008 Decided April 22, 2008No. 07-1086R

AMBUS

I

NCORPORATED

,

P

ETITIONER

v.F

EDERAL

T

RADE

C

OMMISSION

,R

ESPONDENT

Consolidated with07-1124On Petitions for Review of Final Orders of theFederal Trade Commission

A. Douglas Melamed

argued the cause for petitioner.With him on the briefs were

Paul R. Wolfson

,

Sambhav N.Sanikar

,

Andrew J. Ewalt

, and

Pratik A. Shah

.

S. M. Oliva

, appearing pro se, was on the brief for amicuscuriae S. M. Oliva in support of petitioner.

John F. Daly

, Deputy General Counsel for Litigation,Federal Trade Commission, argued the cause for respondent.With him on the briefs were

John D. Graubert

, Principal

2Deputy General Counsel,

William E. Cohen

, Deputy GeneralCounsel for Policy Studies, and

Leslie R. Melman

,

Imad D. Abyad

,

Richard B. Dagen

, and

Patrick J. Roach

, Attorneys.

Jennifer L. Pratt

, Assistant Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the State of Ohio, was on the brief foramici curiae State of Ohio, et al. in support of respondent.With her on the brief were

Marc Dann

, Attorney General,

Talis J. Colberg

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Officeof the State of Alaska,

Terry Goddard

, Attorney General,Attorney General’s Office of the State of Arizona,

Dustin McDaniel

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theState of Arkansas,

John W. Suthers

, Attorney General,Attorney General’s Office of the State of Colorado,

LindaSinger

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theDistrict of Columbia,

Bill McCollum

, Attorney General,Attorney General’s Office of the State of Florida,

Mark Bennett

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theState of Hawaii,

Lawrence G. Wasden

, Attorney General,Attorney General’s Office of the State of Idaho,

Lisa Madigan

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theState of Illinois,

Thomas J. Miller

, Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the State of Iowa,

Paul J. Morrison

,Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Kansas,

Charles C. Foti, Jr.

, Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the State of Louisiana,

G. Steven Rowe

,Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Maine,

Douglas F. Gansler

, Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the State of Maryland,

Martha Coakley

,Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theCommonwealth of Massachusetts,

Michael A. Cox

, AttorneyGeneral, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Michigan,

Lori Swanson

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Minnesota,

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon

,

AttorneyGeneral, Attorney General’s Office of the State of Missouri,

Catherine Cortez Masto

, Attorney General, Attorney

3General’s Office of the State of Nevada,

Anne Milgram

,Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of New Jersey,

Gary King

, Attorney General, Attorney General’sOffice of the State of New Mexico,

Andrew M. Cuomo

,Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of the State of New York,

W.A. Drew Edmondson

, Attorney General,Attorney General’s Office of the State of Oklahoma,

Hardy Myers

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theState of Oregon,

Roberto J. Sánchez Ramos

, AttorneyGeneral, Attorney General’s Office of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,

Lawrence E. Long

, Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the State of South Dakota,

Mark L.Shurtleff

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theState of Utah,

William H. Sorrell

, Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the State of Vermont,

Robert M. McKenna

, Attorney General, Attorney General’s Office of theState of Washington,

Darrell V. McGraw, Jr.

, AttorneyGeneral, Attorney General’s Office of the State of WestVirginia, and

Arthur Ripley, Jr.

, Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the American Samoa Government.

Bennett Rushkoff

, Assistant Attorney General, AttorneyGeneral’s Office of the District of Columbia, entered anappearance.Before: H

ENDERSON

and R

ANDOLPH

,

Circuit Judges

, andW

ILLIAMS

,

Senior Circuit Judge

.Opinion for the Court filed by

Senior Circuit Judge

W

ILLIAMS

.W

ILLIAMS

,

Senior Circuit Judge

: Rambus Inc. developscomputer memory technologies, secures intellectual propertyrights over them, and then licenses them to manufacturers inexchange for royalty payments. In 1990, Rambus’s foundersfiled a patent application claiming the invention of a fasterarchitecture for dynamic random access memory (“DRAM”).