voiceless

Memory chip manufacturer Rambus Inc. has spent the past several years as a defendant facing multiple antitrust claims. Rambus allegedly promoted the adoption of its designs by an industry standards organization, while failing to inform the organization that it had pending, secret patent applications covering those designs. Rival company Infineon Technologies AG, accused of infringing Rambus's patents, won a jury verdict on an antitrust counterclaim, but had that verdict overturned by the Federal Circuit in 2003. The Federal Trade Commission conducted its own investigation beginning in 2002, however, and last August unanimously held Rambus liable for unfair competition in violation of section 5 of the FTC Act. The administrative litigation is still pending, and appeals will likely follow.

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Below the fold are a few photos from the Intellectual Property Scholars Conference at UC-Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, which ended today. I just presented my work in progress, "Antitrust in the Age of Virtualization: A First Principles Approach"; you can read a very preliminary draft here.

Special thanks to Pam Samuelson, Louise Lee, David Grady and Alissa Centivany for their amazing efforts in hosting and organizing, and to countless colleagues for many stimulating and encouraging conversations. Even with the airports on Beverage Alert, it was well worth the long trip!

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Microsoft is planning to "integrate" a virtual machine monitor into a forthcoming version of its Windows Server (codename "Longhorn") operating system. If this sounds eerily familiar, you're right -- it is 1995 all over again.

I'll be presenting a talk about this Aug. 11 at the 2006 Intellectual Property Scholars Conference at UC-Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. You can read an early draft of the article ("Antitrust in the Age of Virtualization: A First Principles Approach") here.

With over 100 speakers on the program, there's a good chance you'll be presenting at IPSC as well. If so, leave a shout out in the comments!

Added Aug. 11: I've posted some photos from the conference.