Rambus has scored a victory in its protracted legal battle with Nvidia. The US International Trade Commission ruled against Nvidia, declaring Rambus' patents valid and concluding Nvidia infringed three Rambus patents.

The patents were used in Nvidia's memory controllers, which were coupled with Nvidia GPUs and other processors. Nvidia general counsel David Shannon claims the company will fight the decision.

"We're going to continue to fight this,Know we're going to take this as far as we have to take it," said Shannon.

Rambus claims it is interested in reaching a productive settlement with Nvidia, whenever the graphics giant is ready.

The ruling does note bode well for Nvidia, as it could even result in an import ban if the matter is not resolved soon. The company is gearing up to launch its heavily delayed Fermi graphics architecture and any further delays could only make a bad situation worse.

However, it is highly unlikely the dispute will result in a ban, as both parties have an interest to resolve it in civilized manner, but a settlement could be quite costly for Nvidia.