Sumner Lemon

A class-action lawsuit against Rambus Inc. has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that the company misled investors by fraudulently claiming patents and collecting licensing revenue related to SDRAM (synchronous dynamic random access memory) technology.

Asia Global Crossing Ltd. Wednesday began offering data networking services in Australia and New Zealand, a move that follows its acquisition last month of the Asian operations of IXnet Inc. and IPC Information Systems Inc. from parent company Global Crossing Ltd., Asia Global Crossing announced in a statement.

Facing a possible legal battle with Intel Corp. over the release of its latest chip set, Via Technologies Inc. said it has been unable to find evidence that Intel holds a patent for the 400MHz front-side bus used with the Pentium 4 processor.

InterTrust Technologies Corp. has once more expanded its patent infringement case against Microsoft Corp. This time, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has alleged that the software activation feature included in several Microsoft products, including Windows XP, Office XP and Visio 2002, violates patents held by InterTrust, according to a statement released Tuesday.

Backed by some of the biggest names in the online entertainment industry, RealNetworks Inc. on Wednesday announced the formation of the XMCL (Extensible Media Commerce Language) Initiative. The company said the initiative would define an open XML-based (Extensible Markup Language) framework for managing rights to digital media, including applications such as purchase, rental, video-on-demand and subscription services.

Hong Kong-based Internet service provider i-Cable Communications Ltd. has terminated acquisition talks with mainland Chinese portal Netease.com Inc., according to an i-Cable statement filed with the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong on Monday.

Lufthansa AG is to make the Connexion by Boeing in-flight broadband Internet access service available to its passengers, the airline announced on Monday.

Taiwanese chipmakers appear to have emerged unscathed from a series of strong earthquakes that struck Taiwan on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.