At least one of the five companies cited in a patent-infringement law-suit by the French Atomic Energy Commission, or the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), was surprised to learn of the news yesterday.
"They claim we violate their patents in the US, the reports say, but we haven't had any official documents from CEA or from the courts," Eddie Chen (
"When I read the news of the lawsuit from the press agencies, I was surprised," he said.
On Monday, France filed a federal suit in the US State of Delaware, claiming that Chi Mei, Dell Computer Corp, Samsung Electronics Co, Sun Microsystems Inc and Viewsonic Corp infringed a flat-panel patent.
The US patents, awarded to the French agency in 1987 and 1989, protect a design for displays used in flat-panel video monitors, the lawsuit says.
The commission "has invested substantial time and money in designing and developing" the technology, while the defendants "continue to transact business in the US" and derive revenue from their infringing products, the suit says.
In the last two months, Chi Mei has been in discussions with the French about two alleged patent infringements. The discussions had been successfully resolved, Chen said yesterday.
"In the past couple of months we had discussions with the CEA and we hired an attorney in the US to deal with the legal issues," Chen said.
"We thought we had settled two patent issues," he said.
Earlier in the day, Chi Mei had issued a statement, saying the company "will take all necessary steps to resolve" the new law-suit.
Pasquale Newton, a spokesman at the CEA in Paris, told the Times via telephone yesterday that he could not comment, saying he did not have the details of the case.
The other companies involved in the law-suit are equally in the dark.
Viewsonic's senior public relations manager in Taipei, Stephanie Tsai (
Dell's spokeswoman in Singapore, Judy Low, had also received no instructions from head office.
At Sun Microsystems, Jessica Tsai (
On Thursday, Dell spokeswoman in the US, Mary Fad, told the Bloomberg wire service the company doesn't comment on pending suits.
The same day, Duane Brozek, a spokesman for closely held ViewSonic, said the company is aware of the suit, though it hasn't seen it and cannot comment.
Makers of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) have stepped-up production, and prices have fallen, as demand increases for flat-panel screens in the US$28 billion worldwide retail monitor market, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Samsung, which claims to be the world's biggest maker of LCD monitors, said in March it will spend US$963 million to increase manufacturing capacity.
Flat-screen TV sales rose to US$204 million in the fourth quarter, according to DisplaySearch, an Austin, Texas-based market-research firm.
Since entering the flat-panel industry in 1999, Taiwan's flat-panel makers have risen rapidly to be the second largest producing nation in the world after the South Koreans, according to DisplaySearch.
Last year, Chi Mei shipped almost 5 million flat panels, netting NT$4.5 billion in income. The company plans to sell 8 million panels this year.
Chi Mei's shares rebounded on the TAIEX yesterday, adding 3.5 percent, or NT$0.8 to close at NT$21.8. On Thursday, Chi Mei's shares had dipped to a 52-week low of NT$20.9.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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