Sony Corp, Japan’s biggest exporter of consumer electronics, filed patent-infringement claims seeking to block LG Electronics Inc from shipping mobile phones to the US.
Sony filed the complaints on Tuesday with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington and in a federal court in Los Angeles. The ITC, which is considering at least a dozen cases related to the expanding market for smartphones, has the power to block imports of products found to violate US patents. The federal court can impose financial penalties.
LG phones, including the Lotus Elite, Neon, Remarq, Rumor 2 and Xenon, are using Sony technology without permission, Tokyo-based Sony said in the civil lawsuit. LG, the world’s third-largest maker of mobile phones, is also being targeted in Sony’s patent suit for its Blu-ray disc players. A copy of the ITC complaint was not immediately available.
“Sony has been keen to protect its patents,” said Yuji Fujimori, a Tokyo-based analyst at Barclays Capital. “The US is an important market for Sony, as its mobile phone venture with Ericsson is trying to win a bigger share.”
The eight Sony patents in the federal court case include ones related to a way to display telephone number listings, direction keys on a portable phone and signal transmission.
John Taylor, a spokesman in the US for Seoul-based LG, said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
Sony plans to invest ￥100 billion (US$1.2 billion) over the next fiscal year to double production capacity for image sensors used in smartphones. A company spokesman this week said an Asahi Shimbun report that Sony may start selling a PSP handheld game machine equipped with a phone was “speculation.”
LG, which plans to begin sales in January of its first smartphone built with a dual-core processor, said on Monday it is trying to boost revenue at its consumer electronics, displays and handsets units by 13 percent next year.
The company lags behind Nokia Oyj and Samsung Electronics Co in sales of mobile phones, according to researcher Gartner Inc. Global sales of all models of mobile phones to end users rose 35 percent in the third quarter to 417 million units, Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner said last month. There were 80.5 million smartphones sold.
LG Electronics said yesterday it would “actively respond” to the lawsuit.
“Based on results of our review, we will take action and actively respond” to Sony’s move, spokeswoman Na Joo-young said.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
NEXT GENERATION: The new 3-nanometer chip has 28 percent more transistors and offers up to 80 percent faster language model performance than its predecessor MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Wednesday launched a new flagship smartphone chip, Dimensity 9400, made with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) enhanced 3-nanometer technology, aiming to bring more artificial intelligence (AI) applications to edge devices like phones. The Dimensity 9400 is the second smartphone chip using TSMC’s second-generation 3-nanometer technology, after Apple Inc’s A18 Pro chip for the new iPhone 16 series. The new mobile chip has 28 percent more transistors, offers up to 80 percent faster large language model performance and is up to 35 percent more power-efficient than its predecessor, Dimensity 9300, MediaTek said. Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi Corp (小米),
RSS