VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子) has filed suit against Apple Inc for allegedly infringing three US patents for microprocessors used in mobile phones and tablet computers.
VIA, a semiconductor designer based in Taipei, seeks a jury trial and an order to prohibit Apple, the world’s biggest technology company by value, from selling products containing the inventions in the US, according to a complaint filed on Thursday in a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware.
“The products at issue generally concern microprocessors included in a variety of electronic products, such as certain smartphones, tablet computers, portable media players and other computing devices,” VIA said in the complaint.
Apple will dominate Christmas sales of tablet computers as rival products based on Google Inc’s Android system are not competitive enough, researcher Gartner Inc said.
“Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services,” Gartner research vice president Carolina Milanesi said in an e-mailed note on Thursday. “Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple’s position will be minimal.”
Worldwide media tablet sales are expected to more than triple this year and reach 63.6 million units, with Apple likely to keep a market share of more than 50 percent until 2014, Gartner said.
Apple’s iPad may account for 73 percent of sales this year, after 83 percent last year. Apart from Apple and Android, no platform is expected to have more than 5 percent of the market this year, Gartner said.
“So far, Android’s appeal in the tablet market has been constrained by high prices, weak user interface and limited tablet applications,” Milanesi said.
Android tablets are expected to account for 17 percent of the market this year, up from 14 percent last year, Gartner said.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
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