Taiwanese exporters are facing rising threats from patent infringement accusations in the US, which could have an adverse impact on exports to the US market, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
Since last month, firms operating in the US market have filed three complaints with the US International Trade Commission, accusing Taiwanese exporters of infringing on their patents and demanding that the commission stop the sale of the products in the US market.
The latest complaint revealed by the commission on Monday last week showed that a consortium led by California-based Tessera Technologies Inc accused Taiwan-based PC vendor Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and Taiwanese smartphone brand HTC Corp (宏達電) of stealing technology related to certain semiconductor devices and semiconductor device packages.
In addition to Asustek and HTC, several other foreign companies, such as Broadcom Corp and Avago Technologies Inc, were named in the complaint.
The Tessera-led consortium says that the accused firms violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and has demanded that the commission issue an order to ban sales in the US.
The commission voted to launch an investigation, saying that it hopes to complete the probe in 45 days.
The commission said that on May 5, HTC, among other companies, was accused by Singapore-based Creative Technology Ltd of infringing on a patent involving the production of certain mobile devices.
The commission said it has launched a probe into the allegation.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as