TECHNOLOGY
Apple sues Motorola
Apple Inc sued Motorola Mobility Inc in a bid to block Motorola’s patent infringement claims against Apple in Germany. Apple, in a complaint filed on Friday in federal court in San Diego, said Motorola’s German suit is based on claims that Apple’s use of Qualcomm Inc components in the iPhone 4S violates Motorola’s European patent. The German suit, Apple says, is a breach of a patent-licensing agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm. “As a Qualcomm customer, Apple is a third-party beneficiary of that contract,” Apple said in the complaint. Apple asked the court to block Motorola’s suit in Germany. Motorola Mobility Holdings has won two rulings against Apple in Germany and on Friday failed to win a third in a patent case involving the use of mathematical sequences in mobile telecommunications.
AUTOMAKERS
BMW agrees to penalty
German carmaker BMW has agreed to pay US$3 million in civil penalties for failing to report safety defects soon enough, US safety regulators said on Friday. Federal safety regulators launched an investigation in 2010 after noting a “troubling trend” in which “BMW appears to maintain a practice, by design or habit, in which it provides little information in its initial filings.” The initial reports were missing critical information, such as plans to remedy the problem, and it took BMW more than 30 days on average to update the reports with required information, the safety regulator said. A review of 16 BMW recalls issued in 2010 found “a number of instances” in which the automaker did not comply with US federal law.
VIDEO RENTAL
Netflix revises earnings
It turns out Netflix Inc’s fourth-quarter earnings weren’t quite as good as the video subscription service told investors a couple of weeks ago. The company lowered its net income by 14 percent to account for a US$9 million payment that will be made as part of a legal settlement reached after the Jan. 25 release of Netflix’s results for the final three months of last year. Accounting for the payment lowered Netflix’s fourth-quarter earnings from a previously reported US$40.7 million, or US$0.73 per share, to US$35.2 million, or US$0.64 per share. Netflix disclosed the change in a regulatory filing late on Friday. The settlement covers claims made under the Video Privacy Protection Act, a law that prohibits rental services from sharing information about what their customers have been watching.
TRADE
ITC approves investigations
A US trade panel on Friday approved investigations that could lead to steep import duties on more than US$1 billion of washing machines from South Korea and Mexico and more than US$150 million of wind energy towers from China and Vietnam. The US International Trade Commission (ITC) agreed there was reasonable evidence that imports from the four countries were harming domestic producers. That allowed the US Department of Commerce to continue investigations already underway. The trade panel also approved a third probe on steel wire garment hangers from Taiwan and Vietnam. In each case, the Department of Commerce will set preliminary duty levels in coming months. The ITC must vote its approval again for final duties to take force. The wind tower case adds to a raft of US-China trade frictions before a visit by China’s likely next leader, Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平), to Washington next week.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is