South Korea’s LG Display Co said yesterday it had asked a Seoul court to ban the domestic sale of Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet computer, citing alleged patent infringements.
In the injunction filed on Wednesday, LG Display accused Samsung of infringing three of its patents on LCD panels used in the Galaxy Note.
“Through this action, LG Display seeks to completely stop the sale, manufacture and importation of the infringing Samsung product,” the firm said in a press release.
The company also said it would request compensation amounting to 1 billion won (US$933,000) per day in the event of continued non-compliance.
The two companies have been in a patent row since September when LG Display — one of the world’s top flat-screen TV makers — filed suits against Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display for allegedly infringing patents on seven organic light-emitting diode (OLED)-related technologies.
LG Display said that five of Samsung’s products, including its global hit Galaxy S smartphones and Galaxy Tab tablet computer, infringed its patents.
Later the same month, Samsung filed a court complaint accusing LG of luring away senior Samsung OLED researchers even though they had signed contracts preventing them working for a rival.
Samsung is no stranger to patent battles. The company and its rival Apple Inc have filed lawsuits against each other in around a dozen countries for alleged patent violations over competing products, in particular the iPhone and Galaxy S smartphones.
Earlier this month, a US judge denied Apple’s request to ban a set of Samsung smartphones from the US market after a jury found the South Korean electronics giant guilty of patent infringement.
Samsung was ordered by a US jury in August to pay Apple US$1.05 billion in damages for illegally copying iPhone and iPad features for its flagship Galaxy S smartphones.
Samsung has appealed the ruling. Since then, two separate rulings by courts in Japan and the Netherlands have dismissed Apple’s claims of patent infringement.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu