Rambus has been charged with antitrust abuse, by the European Union regulators who claim that the memory chip designer demanded "unreasonable" royalties for its patents that were fraudulently set asindustry standards.

According to Associated Press, the EU charges come after the US FTC decided the company deceived a standards-setting committee by failing todisclose that its patented technology would be needed to comply with the standard.

Every manufacturer that wanted to make synchronous dynamic access memory chips had to negotiate a license with Rambus. The FTC have ordered Rambus to stop collecting royalties on US patentsand foreign ones relating to goods imported into or from the UnitedStates. However that ruling did not grant relief to companies in Europe.

The EU could impose a fine of up to 10 percent of a company's global turnover for each year it broke the law which could be around $200 million.

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