Taiwanese DVD chip manufacturer MediaTek Inc has sued Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, the world's biggest consumer electronics maker, over technology that permits compact-disc players to continue to operate when jostled or shaken.
MediaTek said in a complaint that Matsushita, best known for its Panasonic brand, violates a US patent for a compact-disc player with vibration-immune interrupted playback capability.
The complaint, filed on May 24 in the federal court in San Francisco, also asked for a judgment that MediaTek doesn't violate three Matsushita patents that are part of a separate suit filed two years ago.
More than 100 Panasonic and Technics products, such as portable stereo "boomboxes," CD clock radios and home video systems capable of playing CDs use the innovation without permission, Hsinchu-based MediaTek said in court papers.
"As a direct result of Matsushita's and Panasonic's infringement" of the "patent MediaTek has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm," MediaTek said in the suit.
MediaTek is seeking cash compensation and a court order blocking Matsushita from using the invention.
In August 2005, Osaka-based Matsushita sued in the same court, claiming MediaTek integrated circuit chips infringe three patents. That suit is still pending, court records show. Matsushita said at the time that it filed the suit after negotiations with MediaTek failed.
"Matsushita Electric is aware of the filing," spokesman Jim Reilly said in an e-mail. "We have not had time to review the court documents yet, so we are not able to comment."
Meanwhile, 3M Co, maker of 50,000 products from Post-it Notes to electronic road signs, said it settled patent-infringement claims against Matsushita over lithium-ion batteries used in computers and other devices.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Matsushita and its Panasonic unit will license the patents, 3M said. The settlement covers both a suit filed in Minneapolis and a complaint before the US International Trade Commission in Washington, said 3M spokeswoman Donna Fleming Runyon.
3M filed the suit and US trade complaint in March against Matsushita, Panasonic and other electronics companies including Sony Corp and Sanyo Electric Co, the world's biggest manufacturer of rechargeable batteries. The settlement announced yesterday effects only Matsushita and Panasonic, Runyon said.
"Matsushita and Panasonic Corp of North America are now licensed sources" of the batteries, 3M said in the statement.
3M, based in St Paul, Minnesota, said it spent a decade developing a technology that makes the batteries last longer and makes them less likely to overheat.
The batteries are rechargeable because of the movement of lithium ions out of the cathode, or positive electrode, and into the anode, or negative electrode, according to 3M's suit. The 3M patents relate to cathode materials.
Matsushita's Reilly said "the terms of the agreement are confidential so we can't divulge the details."
The trade commission complaint targeted the "Revolithium" batteries used in Panasonic cordless power tools.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
CHINA RIVAL: The chips are positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products and would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips Moore Threads Technology Co (摩爾線程) introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial intelligence (AI) developers’ dependence on Nvidia Corp’s hardware, just weeks after pulling off one of the most successful Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) in years. “These products will significantly enhance world-class computing speed and capabilities that all developers aspire to,” Moore Threads CEO Zhang Jianzhong (張建中), a former Nvidia executive, said on Saturday at a company event in Beijing. “We hope they can meet the needs of more developers in China so that you no longer need to wait for advanced foreign products.” Chinese chipmakers are in
RSS