Federal Trade Commission rules that Rambus Inc. violated antitrust laws

The Federal Trade Commission has finally ruled that the Rambus Inc. violated antitrust laws. The commission has also imposed the limits on the royalties the memory chip designer can charge.

However, these limits were not as hard as the market had expected from the FTC. As a result, Rambus stock surged more than 24 percent at the exchange.

The FTC said in its order that the company violated federal antitrust laws “by deliberately engaging in a pattern of anticompetitive acts to deceive an industry-wide standard-setting organization, which caused or threatened to cause substantial harm to competition and consumers.”

Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel for Rambus said that they are disappointed from the ruling and they are now considering appealing the decision of the FTC.

The ruling now bars Rambus from collecting or attempting to collect more than the FTC-mandated maximum allowable royalty rates from companies still using older DRAM technology licensed from them.