The US International Trade Commission (ITC) said on Thursday that it has decided to launch an investigation into a patent infringement allegation against several Taiwanese companies and others.
In a statement, the commission said the investigation into certain non-volatile memory chips and products containing the chips is aimed at Taiwan’s Acer Inc (宏碁), Macronix International Co (旺宏), ASRock Inc (華擎), Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), D-Link Corp (友訊) and Sercomm Corp (中磊).
Acer, Asustek and ASRock said yesterday the ITC investigation was unlikely to have any adverse impact on their operations, while declining to comment directly on the accusations.
Photo: Reuters/Pichi Chuang
Macronix said Spansion’s accusation was the latest in a series of legal battles between the two companies and described it as unfounded.
Macronix vowed to safeguard its legal rights and said it has been committed to research and development over the long term, and has always respected intellectual property rights held by others.
Other high-tech companies — such as Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp of the US, and Japan’s Nintendo Co — are also to be investigated, the US agency said.
The agency said that Spansion LLC, a California-based flash memory chip supplier, filed a complaint with it on April 29 that accused the companies of violating Section 337 of the US Tariff Act of 1930.
According to the commission, the products under investigation are memory chips that can retain information in the absence of a power source, and consumer electronics devices containing such chips, such as computers, tablets, phones, digital cameras, routers, and video game console and cartridges.
Although the regulator decided to launch the investigation, the trade agency stressed that it had not yet made any decision on the merits of the case.
In August last year, Spansion filed a similar complaint with the commission, accusing Acer and firms in Japan and the US of infringing on its flash memorychip technology.
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