HTC Corp (宏達電) and Nokia Oyj have agreed to collaborate after ending a patent-infringement dispute that could have resulted in the devices of Taiwan’s largest smartphone maker being kept out of the US market.
HTC will pay royalties to Nokia to end the dispute, they said yesterday in a statement, without disclosing the financial terms of the settlement. Each company will gain access to the other’s patented technology and will explore “future technology collaboration opportunities,” they said.
The US’ International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington was scheduled to announce tomorrow whether it would issue an import ban on HTC devices.
Patents will be one area of focus for Nokia after the former mobile-phone market leader agreed in September to sell its handset division to Microsoft Corp.
“The win could be a useful benchmark” for Nokia, Credit Suisse Group AG analyst Kulbinder Garcha wrote in a note to clients on Friday. “The win positions Nokia well in the ongoing arbitration with Samsung to monetize IP beyond standard essential patents and implementation patents.”
The settlement and the patent agreement with Nokia has no material adverse impact on HTC’s finances, the Taoyuan-based company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. The two companies said they have settled all pending patent litigation between them.
“The pact reduces one uncertainty for HTC,” Jih Sun Securities (日盛證券) analyst Chen Fu-li (陳富立) said. “The deal was expected and may not have a big impact on HTC’s finances.”
Nokia is selling its phone business to Microsoft, a deal that is expected to close this quarter, to focus on networking equipment. It has retained patents on fundamental phone technology as part of a program to try and recoup the billions of dollars it spent on research.
“This agreement validates Nokia’s implementation patents and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities,” Nokia chief intellectual property officer Paul Melin said in the statement.
An ITC judge in September found that HTC infringed two Nokia patents for a way to remove errors in radio signals and a process to deal with different radio frequencies. No infringement was found of a third Nokia patent for a way to transmit data from a computer to a mobile phone, which Google Inc helped HTC challenge. It was directed at phones running on Google’s Android operating system.
“Nokia has one of the most preeminent patent portfolios in the industry,” HTC general counsel Grace Lei (雷憶瑜) said in the statement. “As an industry pioneer in smartphones with a strong patent portfolio, HTC is pleased to come to this agreement, which will enable us to stay focused on innovation for consumers.”
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure