Rambus sues IBM to reverse ruling on memory system

* Rambus says US patent office's ruling was in error

* Rambus says IBM application infringes 2002 patent

NEW YORK Aug 24 (Reuters) - Chip designer Rambus Inc (RMBS.O) has sued International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N), seeking to reverse a federal agency finding that its patent for a memory system was not infringed.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in the federal court in San Jose, California, Rambus said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office erred through a series of decisions in finding that a patent application assigned to IBM did not interfere with its own patent obtained at the end of 2002.

According to a June 24 ruling by the office's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, the patent concerns a memory controller that communicates to at least one memory subsystem, with an independent point-to-point link used between the controller and each subsystem.

"The board committed errors of fact and law in its orders, decisions, and judgment," Rambus said in its complaint.

For the June 24 ruling, click_