Few Silicon Valley companies inspire a wider range of emotions than the computer chip designer Rambus, Inc. In the view of its leadersas well as fiercely loyal shareholders who have flown around the country to watch its lawyers in courtthe company is a visionary turned victim. Rambus revolutionized the computer industry in the 1990s, they say, when the company debuted state-of-the-art chip technology and licensed it to chip manufacturers. Rambus hasn’t been fairly compensated for those innovations, its defenders maintain, because rivals copied the technology and refused to pay up. Confronted with brazen collusion and theft, Rambus had no choice but to seek relief in court by suing its rivals.
“We really didn’t plan on being a litigation company,” says Thomas Lavelle, Rambus’s general counsel since 2006. “Our founders had breakthrough innovations and great patents, and they believed that would lead to success. I don’t think it occurred to them thatas cynical as the world can bethe better product might not be adopted.”
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