Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world's No. 2 computer memory chipmaker, said Thursday that a U.S. court rejected an antitrust lawsuit filed by Rambus Inc. against the Korean chipmaker.
In November last year, a San Francisco jury ruled that Hynix and its U.S. peer Micron Technology Inc. were not involved in illegal actions to prevent Rambus from expanding into the chipmaking market.
The latest ruling by the Superior Court of the State of California confirmed the November jury decision, which gives solace to Hynix as the Korean chipmaker could have paid out as much as US$1.2 billion in compensation to Rambus.
"Hynix welcomes the ruling and will do its best to make an argument for potential appeals (by Rambus)," Hynix said in a statement. Rambus is allowed to make an appeal within 60 days.
Rambus, a Sunnyvale, California-based company that licenses its technology to chipmakers, filed the complaint in 2004 against Hynix, Micron and Samsung Electronics Co., accusing the three chipmakers of illegally colluding to keep Rambus' technology from making a footing in the chipmaking market.
Samsung Electronics reached an out-of-court settlement with Rambus in 2010, with an agreement that the world's top memory chipmaker will pay Rambus $700 million through 2015.
The ruling is widely seen as giving support to Hynix Semiconductor in a situation that its Japanese rival Elpida is suffering from financial problems.
A sign of rebound in dynamic random access memory chip, mainly used in personal computers, and Elpida's financial woes led share prices of Hynix to jump 5.26 percent on Wednesday. But despite winning the Rambus case, stock prices of Hynix closed at 28,700 won ($25.4) on the main bourse on Thursday, down 1.03 percent from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)