Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, retained its title as the most prolific applicant for invention patents in Taiwan in the first half of the year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
In the first six months of the year, the number of patent applications for inventions, utility models and designs, among others, was 33,954, down 4 percent from the same period last year, due mainly to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on industrial research and development, the Intellectual Property Office said.
In the first half of the year, TSMC filed 375 applications for invention patents, the highest number in the nation, retaining its place as the most prolific applicant in the period for the fourth consecutive year, the office said.
Integrated circuit designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) had the second-highest number of filings for invention patent applications at 211, followed by flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) with 210, it said.
US-based Qualcomm Inc was the top foreign applicant for invention patents, filing 304, while Ford Motor Co led in design patent applications with 114 filings, the office’s data showed.
In terms of other nations, Japan was the top patent applicant, filing 6,105 applications, and it also filed the largest number of design patent applications at 497, the data showed.
In the first six months, domestic applicants filed 32,843 trademark applications, the highest number since 2000 and a 10 percent increase from the same period last year, the data showed.
The number of trademark applications filed by foreign applicants fell 12 percent year-on-year to 10,542 in the six-month period, due to the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the office said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained