24/7 Wall St.

Rambus Inc. (NASDAQ:RMBS) announced after the close that its senior legal advisor John Danforth who had been Senior Legal Advisor since July 2006, and prior to that had been its first general counsel.  He had been working under a January 2006 employment agreement, which, ran through October 22, 2007 and the resignation is effective October 22, 2007.

“We want to thank John for his years of hard work and loyal service,” said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel for Rambus. “The Company had significant litigation successes during his tenure. The Company is particularly pleased with, among other things, John’s work in defending the Company’s intellectual property rights, including obtaining positive outcomes in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the Infineon case, and in the first two phases of the ongoing Hynix patent case. In these and other areas, the Company overcame significant legal hurdles, which John and his team addressed in a highly professional and effective manner. We thank John for his years of hard work for Rambus and wish him the best in his future endeavors.” 

Normally we’d not even give this very much of a thought.  But Rambus is a company which has been a basically a lawsuit company to protect its revenue stream over its design patents and licenses.  Danforth was instrumental during part of the Hynix case and winning the Infineon case.  Here is a full link to the Rambus litigation site.

24/7 Wall St. would like to know if this means the legal issues are winding down and things are stabilizing, or if this means they are about to heat back up.  That probably won’t be known for some time and we’ll wait to see the analyst calls tomorrow and Monday.  This week the company announced it had regained NASDAQ compliance and this morning it set October 31 as its earnings date.

Jon C. Ogg
October 25, 2007