Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) in the first three months of this year filed the most invention patent applications it has ever filed in a quarter, retaining its place as the nation’s top patent applicant, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said last week.
In the first quarter, the world’s largest contract chipmaker filed 678 invention patents, up 426 percent quarter-on-quarter and the most among Taiwanese and foreign applicants for an eighth straight quarter, Intellectual Property Office data showed.
Among foreign applicants, US-based chip designer Qualcomm Inc placed first with 215 invention patent applications, up 46 percent from the previous quarter, the data showed.
In Taiwan, patents are categorized in three groups: invention patents; utility model patents that cover how items are used and work; and design patents.
Invention patents are deemed the most important in terms of the creation of new technical ideas.
Flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) filed the second-largest number of invention patent applications at 121, up 6 percent year-on-year, followed by chip designer Realtek Semiconductor Corp (瑞昱半導體) with 112 applications, iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) with 78 and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (工研院) with 60.
Electrical product maker Nitto Denko Corp of Japan placed second among foreign companies with 186 applications, up 26 percent year-on-year, followed by South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co with 141 applications, Japanese semiconductor supplier Tokyo Electron Ltd with 135 and US semiconductor equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc with 128.
The data showed that 3,821 invention patent applications were filed by Taiwanese firms in the first quarter.
PC brand Acer Inc (宏碁) filed the most design patent applications at 21, while US-based jewelry brand Harry Winston was the top foreign firm with 42 filings.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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