Rambus Inc. scored a key victory Wednesday in its nearly decade-old fight with memory chip makers when a jury found the company did not engage in monopolistic behavior by patenting technologies that eventually became standard in memory chips.

Shares of the Los Altos-based company shot up $7.25, or nearly 39 percent, to $25.86 during regular-session trading on the news. They gained another $1.02 to $26.88 after hours.

The jury’s decision could help Rambus as it tries to gather millions of dollars in royalties on patents some of the biggest memory chip makers claim were fraudulently obtained.

Rambus makes most of its money by licensing patented chip designs that were created by its engineers and used widely by other companies in their DRAM chips, or dynamic random access memory, the most common type of memory chip used in personal computers.

Rambus had about $180 million in revenue in 2007.

However, Rambus still faces major court battles by its patents,

including its attempt to overturn a 2006 Federal Trade Commission ruling that the company deceived a standards-setting committee and created a monopoly in the memory chip industry. Rambus is hoping for a decision by that summer on its appeal.

After a seven-week trial, a jury in U.S. District Court in San Jose decided Wednesday in Rambus’ favor on all three counts it was deliberating, according to Thomas Lavelle, Rambus’ general counsel. The jury deliberated for just one day.

In the lawsuit, originally filed in 2000, chip makers Micron Technology Inc., Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Nanya Technology Corp. argued that patents held by Rambus for key technologies now included in their chips should be considered invalid. And they said they shouldn’t have to pay royalties to Rambus.

The companies say Rambus engaged in illicit behavior in filing the patents for technologies used in DRAM chips.

The FTC found Rambus intentionally withheld data…

Orginal post by Top Tech News