TECO Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機), a local manufacturer of home appliances and telecommunications equipment, said yesterday it was suing Sisvel S.p.A. and Royal Philips Electronics NV for at least 1 million euros (US$1.45 million) each in response to patent infringement allegations.
On Friday, the first day of the IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) exposition in Berlin, TECO was accused by Sisvel and Philips of MP3 and DVD patent infringements in its 13 Green TV products.
On the same day, 220 German customs agents seized items from 68 other booths at the exhibition in response to complaints filed by Sisvel. The seized products included CD players, set-top boxes, MP3 players and flat-screen TVs.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES
After an investigation in Germany, TECO was cleared of the charges. But as a result of Sisvel’s accusation and the subsequent probe, TECO missed the entire six days of the trade show, the company said.
“Sisvel has been acting as a quasi-licensing arm of Philips, going around suing various companies in Europe,” TECO chairman Liu Chao-kai (劉兆凱) said at a media briefing yesterday.
Sisvel is an Italian consumer electronics (CE) outfit that recently bought three of Philips’ MP3 patents, while Philips is Europe’s biggest CE producer.
“We are particularly infuriated by this unwarranted raid. After all, anyone can see that our Green TVs don’t even come with an MP3 player or built-in DVD player. How can these companies say TECO infringed their patents?” Liu asked.
TECO said the lawsuits would go through Germany’s local district court first. The amount of compensation for lost business opportunities will be considered separately at a later date, Vincent Hsieh (謝穎昇), executive adviser in TECO’s legal division, told reporters yesterday.
TECO shares fell NT$0.75, or 5.45 percent, yesterday to NT$13.0 on the Taiwan stock exchange.
The IFA is the world’s leading trade show for the general public and the CE industry’s No. 1 venue for doing business.
A similar incident occurred at an exhibition in Hannover, Germany, in March. However, different authorities were involved in seizing the goods.
“Previously, only technology proficient handlers could take goods from the exhibit, but this time the German police were involved and clearly had no understanding of the products they were seizing,” Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) president and chief executive officer Chao Yuen-chuan (趙永全) said at the same briefing.
To avoid future mishaps, TAITRA has been conducting numerous workshops and forums in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung and Hsinchu, inviting Taiwanese businesses to share their experiences and learn about their legal rights, Chao said.
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
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
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