TELECOM
Suit loss adds to RIM’s woes
A US federal jury in San Francisco has found beleaguered Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) liable for US$147.2 million in damages for infringing on patents held by Mformation Technologies Inc. Amar Thakur, a lawyer for Mformation, said Saturday that the verdict late on Friday followed a three-week trial and a week of deliberations by an eight-person jury. Mformation, of Edison, New Jersey, sued Research in Motion in October 2008, alleging that Canada-based RIM infringed on its 1999 invention for remotely managing wireless devices. Mformation’s software allows companies to remotely access employee cellphones to do software upgrades, change passwords or to wipe data from phones that have been stolen. Thakur said the jury ruled that RIM should pay his client US$8 for each of the 18.4 million BlackBerrys that were connected to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, from the day the lawsuit was filed until the time of the trial.
SPORTSWEAR
Bolt key to Puma strategy
With the London Olympic games just days away, German sportswear giant Puma is pinning its hopes on sprint legend Usain Bolt to speed up sales and outpace its bigger competitors Adidas and Nike. Bolt, the world’s fastest man who blew away his rivals to win three gold medals in Beijing four years ago, is also a key plank in the firm’s strategy to shift its focus from lifestyle clothing to sportswear. Sportswear currently accounts for 35 percent of Puma sales, but the firm’s boss Franz Koch wants to boost that to 40 percent and the company sees its sponsorship of double world record holder Bolt as key to that aim.
For the full year, Puma is aiming at an increase of between 5 and 10 percent in turnover with a roughly 5 percent boost in net profits.
AVIATION
Kingfisher strike over
India’s struggling Kingfisher Airlines said late on Saturday its services would return to normal after a strike by employees over long overdue pay forced cancellation of more than three dozen flights. The announcement came after the airline’s owner, Vijay Mallya, told workers in an open letter that “damaging the future of Kingfisher in the public’s eyes is not going to produce cash” to pay wages and keep the carrier aloft. The walkout, the third in under two weeks, came after the airline — which owes vast sums to banks, suppliers and staff — won more time from lenders this month to come up with a recovery plan to avert bankruptcy. Kingfisher, which has US$1.4 billion in debts, is flying some 15 aircraft, down from an earlier 64 planes, as it battles to curb costs.
PHARMACEUTICALS
EU medicine body opens up
Europe’s medicines regulator, criticized in the past for excessive secrecy, is opening its data vaults to systematic scrutiny in a move that will let independent researchers trawl through millions of pages of clinical trial information. The change is a landmark in transparency that puts Europe ahead of the US, according to critics of the US$1 trillion-a-year global drugs industry, who have long argued for full access to trial data. Such information is a treasure trove for scientists wanting to test drug company claims and potentially expose product deficiencies. It is blow for the pharmaceutical industry, which guards its commercial secrets fiercely and has not before been required to share its data with independent researchers or academics.
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