Taiwanese compact disc producer Gigastorage Corp (國碩科技) has signed a preliminary agreement with rival Royal Philips Electronics NV to settle prolonged patent lawsuits, a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
On Saturday, Gigastorage said that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Philips over IPR disputes regarding the manufacturing of CD-R and CD-RW media that began in 2001.
The company did not disclose details about the agreement, saying only that it was prepared to discuss payments to the Dutch company.
Gigastorage's board approved the plans to settle the patent lawsuits with Philips on Friday. Its shares rose NT$0.75 (US$0.02), or 6.91 percent, to close at NT$11.6 on Saturday.
Gigastorage stock has shot up 37.28 percent since the beginning of this year.
Gigastorage's attempt to settle the patent disputes with Philips, however, may not mean an end to looming IPR disputes between Taiwan and the EU.
The EU is close to concluding a probe into the legitimacy of a ruling made by Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in 2005 in favor of Gigastorage.
The investigation came in response to a Philips request.
The IPO imposed compulsory licensing on five CD-R and CD-RW patents owned by Philips, allowing Gigastorage to use the Dutch company's patents in manufacturing CD-R and CD-RW discs without paying royalties and allowing Gigastorage to sell the products in the domestic market.
"We are closely monitoring the development. If the EU rules in favor of Philips, we'll have to solve the disputes under the framework of the WTO," Tsai Lien-sheng (
"This may mark the first time we seek to solve IPR problem with another WTO member within the system after Taiwan joined the trade body," Tsai said.
Gigastorage said it did not believe the case would develop into an international issue.
"According to our understanding, Philips may withdraw its request to the EU," Gigastorage spokesman Carl Lee (李朝欽) said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Lee said that the company expected to sign a definitive agreement with Philips by the end of this year, adding that the settlement, if reached, would not have a serious impact on Gigastorage's financial situation.
"We should be able to make the payments in annual installments. We would have to pay lawyers anyway if the lawsuits continued," he said.
Gigastorage has paid no royalties to Philips since 2001 after filing lawsuits in the US, saying that Philips had overcharged companies using its patents to make CD-R and CD-RW discs.
The end of the lawsuits with Philips would have a positive impact on Gigastorage's ability to sell its products internationally, the company's filing said.
Gigastorage posted a loss of NT$155 million for the first six months of the year.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last