selovencokes patent cia’ ort Subject: an overlooked patent claim? Date: Mon, 3 Apr 1995 14:49:01 -0800 From: gtate@jupiter (Geoff Tate) To: robers, dillon CC: gtate what did we end up doing about this idea? geoft poate: Thu, 16 Jun 94 16:44:53 FOr >From: dillon (Jonn Dillon) >To: exec, barth, ware >Subject: an overlocked patent claim? bce: dillon >status: 80 >Several sync DRAMS and the MOST DRAM include the auto-precharge 3feature. In this, the DRAM 13 automatically precharged after a read or >write colunn operation. I believe we might be able to claim this idea OI had never heard of auto-precharge before reading the Rambus patent >in '92. The prior art always had the per-chip RAS wire, Precharge >occurred only when the wire RAS wire made 4 transition. That is, >prior art precharge was always manual >The original Rambus patent application clearly describes this feature >on page 27 of the teachings. Today, the claim on this is part of >divisional P08, which is pending. >clain 89 actually claims this feature. However, claim 89 is dependent >on the much narrower claim 82 of a ORAM with internal select decoding. bie may be able to make a broader Clain on auto-prechagre for "any DORAM and therefore gain leverage over SDRAM and MOST. >For SORAMS, auto-precharge is mostly a convenience. It is not >fundamental to the performance or usefulness of SDRAM or MOST. But ppatenting this feature would have high harassment value, especially to >the extent that third-party SORAM controllers depend on it. ceose Tate gtate@ranbus com Tel (415) 303-3807; Fax (415) 968-1528 Rambus Ine 2465 Latham, Mountain View, California USA 94040 RH 386304 R 233810 (OUTSIDE COUNSEL ONLY spo term "ex0791-001