Another patent lawsuit hits Hynix.

Byline: Ilene Aleshire The Register-Guard

A second technology firm has sued Hynix Semiconductor in less than a week over alleged patent infringements.

Rambus Inc., which is based in Los Altos, Calif., said Tuesday that it has sued Hynix and three other companies, alleging infringements of up to 18 of Rambus' patents relating to memory chips.

Hynix, which employs about 1,000 people at a computer chip plant in Eugene, had no immediate comment.

The suit comes five days after a Canadian firm, Mosaid, sued Hynix, alleging that Hynix was infringing on six of Mosaid's patents.

Rambus previously had filed suit against Hynix, claiming that Hynix was infringing on 15 of Rambus' patents. Last week, a federal judge found that Hynix was infringing on parts of four Rambus patents, Rambus said in a news release. The judge also granted Hynix' motion that nine claims relating to four patents be removed from the case. The first phase of the trial focusing on issues still in dispute is scheduled to begin March 21, Rambus said.

Tuesday, Rambus' general counsel, John Danforth, said that "with strong evidence of infringement of our patents already in the public record, we have taken this step today, filing our first new patent case in the U.S. since August 2000.

"Our preference is to work with the semiconductor industry to provide value and resolve these issues through other means," Danforth said in a statement. "But sometimes we - like other patent holders - must rely on the court system to be fairly compensated for our inventions."

Rambus, which has regional offices in North Carolina, Taiwan and Japan, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Hynix is based in South Korea. Its factory in west Eugene makes memory chips used primarily in computers and is the company's only factory outside of Asia.