Remember hearing about the various patent infringements, anti-trust violations and price-fixing schemes that many big memory manufacturers were found guilty of?  Did you hope that these decisions might end with you having a bit of money back in your pocket?  AnandTech takes a look at the more recent rulings, and covers why there is a good chance you don’t even qualify to be involved in the class action suit.

“Over just the last decade, the memory industry has been through no less than three major shakeups. The first is the infamous and now settled RAMBUS patent case, started in 2000 where RAMBUS asserted that it held patents on technology used in DDR RAM and wanted royalties as such, only to be found guilty of breaking antitrust and deception laws in acquiring these patents and covertly trying to influence the memory market. The second case involves the Big 10 memory manufacturers colluding to keep RAM prices artificially high between 1998 and 2002, to which they were found guilty. Finally, a new investigation has opened up as of this year in to the flash memory market, where the Justice Department is trying to figure out if there is evidence of collusion and price-fixing there too.

Today we’ll be taking a look at the latter two actions, one just wrapping up while another begins. What exactly went on in these cases? How were or potentially were consumers hurt by all of this? What has been done to punish the offenders and to correct the market? Let’s find out.”

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