"An opportunity arose from Inmos choosing our memory alone, and now Rambus has gone as far as patent suits? Chief Hwang."

"Yes, Chairman."

"There isn't some sort of arrangement between Rambus and that fellow Seong-ho, is there?"

"What do you mean by that…?"

"Otherwise how does a patent suit go in at such a convenient moment? As though they'd had a request from Seong-ho."

Do-beom Hwang felt he knew why Tak-hyeon Lee was saying such a thing.

To anyone who did not know, the timing was exact enough to suggest that Rambus had waited for the cooperation between Inmos and Ilhyeon Electronics and then brought suit.

But nobody thought Rambus had done it for Seong-ho Kim's sake.

They had merely marveled at it as pure good fortune.

Do-beom Hwang, realizing that Tak-hyeon Lee had thrown out a joke, let his tense face relax.

"Just so. It's convenient to an excessive degree. It looks as though we'll be able to recover market dominance for certain."

"So what is the plan? A way to live has opened, and the other side's prices look set to rise on account of litigation costs — did he say he'd raise prices? Or that he'd go into throttling back the pace of development?"

Tak-hyeon Lee thought that, heaven having helped, they would use a situation like this to make money.

Because the most rational decision was precisely to use this opportunity to make money.

But Seong-ho Kim had not done so.

"Neither of the two."

Tak-hyeon Lee tilted his head as though it were unexpected and asked,

"Not? Not to use a situation where the competitors are caught up in patent suits and can't come to their senses — has that fellow Seong-ho no intention of making money?"

"If anything, he says it's an opportunity now and he plans to drive them harder."

"Drive them harder?"

Do-beom Hwang passed on to Tak-hyeon Lee exactly what he had heard from Seong-ho Kim.

"That until Inmos, which supports Rambus and DDR RAM simultaneously, comes to adopt DDR alone… he said he would push."

"He said he'd push until…