In a closely watched intellectual property case, U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson has ruled that Rambus employees had destroyed email and other documents related to the company’s patents, litigation, and marketing strategies between 1998 and 1999, and, as such, a dozen DRAM-related patents held by Rambus cannot be enforced against memory maker Micron. The two companies have patent-infringement lawsuits filed against each other in the Delaware court; however, Judge Robinson’s ruling would appear to take most of the wind out of Rambus’ case, with the judge characterizing Rambus’ bad faith “clear and convincing.”
