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Technology licensing company Rambus has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against chipmaker NVIDIA Corp. for patent infringement. The suit alleges that Nvidia infringed 17 of Rambus' patents on products, including chipsets and graphics processors, with memory controllers.

The lawsuit alleges at least six of Nvidia's product lines infringe the Rambus patents, including chip sets, graphics processors and applications processors. The patents cover a broad range of memory technologies ranging from synchronous DRAMs to multiple generations of double data rate SDRAMs and graphics DRAMs, Rambus claimed.

"For more than six years, we have diligently attempted to negotiate a licensing agreement with NVIDIA, but our good faith efforts have been to no avail," said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus.

He further added saying that, "Graphics and multimedia products require leading-edge memory performance, and as NVIDIA advances its product portfolio, it infringes more and more of our patents. We are left with no other recourse than litigation to protect and seek fair compensation for the use of our patented inventions. Nevertheless, we hope to continue discussions with NVIDIA to reach a negotiated settlement."

The suit asks for an injunction that would prevent Nvidia from shipping the products as well as monetary damages. It's not clear whether the action could foreshadow more suits against companies who develop memory controllers.

Rambus has been attempting to get Nvidia to purchase a license for the patents, and the suit was the last resort. However, Rambus hopes to settle the issue out of court, said Lavelle.

Rambus has been involved in at least seven court actions against many of the world's top DRAM makers over the last several years. The company sued several DRAM makers who would not pay royalties for its patents on SDRAMs. The DRAM makers in turn brought actions against Rambus, claiming the company intentionally withheld patented technology from DRAM standards efforts.