Rambus Loses Another Legal Battle

Updated from 4:05 p.m. ET

Rambus (RMBS Quote) is now 0-2 in its court battle with Germany's Infineon Technologies (IFX Quote).

Just days after a judge tossed out the remaining pieces of Rambus' key patent-infringement suit against Infineon, a jury in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., said Wednesday that Rambus was liable for fraud and ordered it to pay punitive damages of $3.5 million in its battle with the German chipmaker. Infineon had charged that Rambus deliberately concealed that it was applying for patents for synchronous dynamic random access memory chips while the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council, a trade group that worked on developing a standard for memory, was working on a common standards for the chips, according to Reuters.

Rambus said it would immediately appeal the fraud verdict. "We are obviously disappointed in today's verdict and will immediately appeal,'' Geoff Tate, Rambus CEO, said in a statement. "The innovations at issue are Rambus inventions, and the evidence presented at trial made it clear that Infineon knew all along that they were Rambus inventions."

Rambus, in its broad efforts to get other chipmakers to pay for what it contends are its chip designs, had sued Infineon charging patent infringement. But a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia judge dismissed the last of those claims last week, punishing Rambus' stock.

Rambus' stock closed Wednesday down 90 cents, or 6.6%, to $12.80.