June 6) -- A retired South Carolina teacher two weeks ago opened a piece of mail that he likened to getting kicked in the stomach:

"If you are receiving this letter, it means that I have taken, or at least attempted to take, my own life..."

The letter was written by a North Canton, Ohio, man named Barry Watzman. He and the recipient had never met face to face, but they did chat online for years via a bulletin board devoted to

At one time Watzman had racked up more than a million dollars in Rambus profits. But he never cashed out, hoping instead for an even bigger payday that never came. When the pendulum swing of the share price (which has fluctuated between $4 and $115 over the past decade) turned against him this past year, he tried to recoup his losses by doubling down with speculative options.

The strategy backfired to disastrous effect. Rather than hide his shame, Watzman opted to share it with those Rambus faithful who gather daily on the Investor Village website.

"The particular circumstance of using the Web is unusual, but this is something we ought to expect to see a lot more of," Yeates Conwell, professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and co-director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide, told AOL News. "To the extent that [the Internet] is a means of communication and suicide is an interpersonal act, it makes sense."

Conversation on the often raucous Rambus

The company was founded in 1990 by two brainiac engineers, Mike Farmwald and Mark Horowitz. Rambus went public in 1997. Its business model is based on intellectual-property royalties charged for advances made in chip architecture.

Technically savvy investors like Watzman, a professional engineer until he was laid off and switched to part-time teaching, revel in the bits and bytes of data transfer. It's all about increasing the speed and capacity of memory controllers, which in turn stretch bandwidth to help make possible our ever-more-sophisticated video games, TVs and cell phones.

Proponents insist Rambus solved the "memory bottleneck" in chip design with game-breaker engineering. Critics say the technology is evolutionary, not revolutionary, adding that Rambus seduced some chip manufacturers into adopting its designs by not fully disclosing its ultimate pay-to-play patent intentions.

Those arguments have been publicly hashed out (also, rehashed and re-rehashed) for nearly 15 years. In courtrooms in Virginia, Delaware, California and Washington, D.C. At the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and International Trade Commission.

Charges and countercharges have been traded ad infinitum involving collusion, document destruction and price fixing. Hundreds of millions of dollars in court costs ... and counting. Enough legal briefs filed to fill the Grand Canyon.

And, still, no definitive resolution.

Watzman's suicide note lambasted dithering judges, corporate patent pirates and even Rambus' bonus-happy executives. "Screwing shareholders," he proclaimed, "is 'the American Way.' "

His fellow investors at Investor Village groped for conclusions of their own regarding his demise. One quoted Shakespeare. One saw the hand of "Satan" at work. Some vowed to be more civil in their future message posts and less risky with their future investment dollars. "Nuke John," a battle-scarred veteran Ramboid, echoed a popular sentiment, noting Watzman was "a good man and he didn't deserve what the US justice system put Rambus investors through."

He leaves behind a mother, two adult sons and a wife. Debbie Watzman understandably wants nothing further to do with Rambus. She repeatedly warned her husband about placing too much faith in one company, about the dangers of unconditionally giving heart and soul to a stock.

"He was not a naive investor, but at the end it wasn't an investment strategy. It was gambling," she told AOL News. "I wish I could warn everybody who's involved with this thing to take a step back."

The International Trade Commission was due to announce a decision on May 26 in a high-profile case where Rambus asserts a European chip maker has infringed upon several patents. Ramboids were in no stepping-back mood.

May 26 would've been Barry Watzman's birthday. Many Ramboids saw poetic justice in the timing of those dual events. A favorable ITC verdict normally sends the winning company's stock price soaring. This could mark an important turning point in Rambus' intellectual property fight. It could mean a measure of redemption for poor Watzman.

Poetic justice didn't happen. The International Trade Commission elected to postponed its decision until late July.

Rambus stock tumbled 10 percent after that latest delay. But the price spiked back up this week: There are rumors a ruling is imminent in another case being heard in California federal court. Ramboids are again anxiously anticipating word from a judge. Waiting ....waiting ....waiting.