"Rambus is seeking $4.3 billion in damages, which could be tripled by a California jury. Given the potentially staggering amount of damages that could be awarded with a court victory, a pre-trial settlement is certainly a possibility."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/170458-3...

What I am about to say will not be popular and will receive no recommends from the 30 or so resident Rambus Pumpers.

OK with that said, let's discuss the probability of a $4.3B trial win and heaven forbid trebled damages to $12.9B and the likely hood that if an award is held up in appeal would ever be paid. And of course will Hynix settle before hand.

Full disclosure-No position in Rambus or Nvidia at this time, but I have swing traded Nvidia many times and tried one day trade on Rambus.

First-The first rule of pumping a stock is to keep it credible. See Nuke John's seeking alpha articles. Just because someone sues for an amount does not mean they will win that amount or even if they will win the court case. If I have my facts right Hynix has had to place into a bond $380M determined by the ITC/FTC. This bond is determined by the US authorities to insure that the Litigant is paid in full if the Litigant wins. That equates to $3.61/share. It is true that the judge can treble damages, but how oven does that happen? Rambus boosters can supply those facts.

Second-No past damages awards other than this trial if a Dram mfg. takes a license within one year per EU Settlement.

"Under the proposed resolution, Rambus will offer licenses with maximum royalty
rates for five-year worldwide licenses of 1.5% for DDR2, DDR3, GDDR3 and GDDR4
SDRAM memory types. Licensees who ship less than 10% of their DRAM products in
the older SDR and DDR DRAM types will enjoy a royalty holiday for those older
types, subject to compliance with the terms of the license. In addition, Rambus will offer licenses with maximum royalty rates for five-year worldwide licenses of 1.5% per unit for SDR memory controllers through April 2010, dropping to 1.0% thereafter, and royalty rates of 2.65% per unit for DDR, DDR2, DDR3, GDDR3 and GDDR4 memory controllers through April 2010, then dropping to 2.0%. This commitment to license at the above rates will be valid for a period of five years from the adoption date of the Commitment decision. All royalty rates are applicable to future shipments only."

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRele...

Third-Will Hynix settle pretrial. That IMHO is iffy. I believe they feel that they have been unfairly treated too, and frankly what is the risk?

Fourth-Will Rambus win in SF. I don't know? Jury profiling will be critical.

Fifth - Without a settlement or a court win no one is going to sign on with Rambus. Especially since the main patents expire in April of next year.

Sixth - Notice the EU settlement does not mention GDDR5 because even Rambus does not believe their patents are infringed. Note: Hynix is the premier supplier of GDDR5 memory---and is quoting rates as fast as XDR today. Technology moves very fast.

All in my opinion of course. Good luck.