Toshiba Corp won a patent lawsuit against South Korean rival Hynix Semiconductor Inc in a Tokyo court yesterday over patents for computer chips widely used in cellphones, digital cameras and portable music players.
The Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of the Japanese electronics company, saying that Hynix Semiconductor had infringed on Toshiba's patents related to NAND flash memory.
The court ordered that sales of Hynix products found to be in violation be halted in Japan and ordered Hynix pay Toshiba ?7.8 million (US$67,000) in damages, Toshiba spokesman Makoto Yasuda said.
In Seoul, Hynix, the world's second-largest memory chip maker after Samsung Electronics Co, said yesterday that it will take all possible legal actions against the Tokyo court's ruling.
appeal
Hynix spokeswoman Kim Ah-young said the company plans to appeal.
"The company will take all possible legal measures against the court's ruling," said Bang Min-ho, general manager of Hynix Semiconductor, while declining to elaborate. "The court ruling is only related to one of the three violations of NAND flash memory related patents. And it's just the beginning of the trial."
Toshiba filed the lawsuit in November 2004. At that time, it also filed a lawsuit against Hynix in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, seeking unspecified damages, accusing Hynix of violating patents in the US for DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips, which are used in personal computers. The US case is still pending, Yasuda said.
Toshiba and Hynix entered a licensing agreement in August 1996 that included semiconductor products, Toshiba said. They began negotiating an extension of the agreement ahead of its expiration in December 2002, but failed to agree on a fee, leading to the lawsuits.
growing competition
Such legal battles underline growing competition in the electronics industry between the established Japanese companies and newer, up-and-coming South Korean makers.
Earlier this year, Japan said it will slap import duties of 27.2 percent on computer memory chips made by Hynix in retaliation for alleged government subsidies. South Korea and Hynix blasted the move.
The tariff is the first Japan has imposed to counter alleged subsidies by a foreign government. It is also the first time for Tokyo to levy such duties on high-technology products.
That dispute began when Japan's Elpida Memory Inc and Micron Japan Ltd, a unit of US chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, filed complaints to the Japanese government in 2004 that their businesses were hurt by alleged South Korean subsidies to Hynix in the form of bailout loans.
Toshiba shares fell 0.2 percent at ?659 (US$5.60), while Hynix Semiconductor ended down 2.4 percent at 26,500 won (US$28).
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Proposed amendments would forbid the use of all personal electronic devices during school hours in high schools and below, starting from the next school year in August, the Ministry of Education said on Monday. The Regulations on the Use of Mobile Devices at Educational Facilities up to High Schools (高級中等以下學校校園行動載具使用原則) state that mobile devices — defined as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches or other wearables — should be turned off at school. The changes would stipulate that use of such devices during class is forbidden, and the devices should be handed to a teacher or the school for safekeeping. The amendments also say
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
RSS