Press Release: Antitrust: Commission accepts commitments from Rambus lowering memory chip royalty rates

The European Commission adopted a decision in December 2009 that renders legally binding commitments offered by Rambus Inc that in particular put a cap on its royalty rates for certain patents for “Dynamic Random Access Memory” chips (DRAMS). The Commission initially had concerns that Rambus may have infringed EU rules on the abuse of a dominant market position (Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – "TFEU" 1 ) by claiming abusive royalties for the use of these patents. DRAMS are used to temporarily store data, for example in PCs. The Commission's decision confirms that it now considers the commitments are adequate to address these competition concerns

European Commission: SPEECH/09/575: Neelie Kroes European Commissioner for Competition Policy Opening remarks at press conference Brussels, 9th December 2009 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/09/575&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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