*NEWS*CHINA PATENT SUITS…TO U.S. COURTS

[Anonymous]

China patent suits head to U.S.
courts
Tech giants seek new way to crack down on
piracy
Feb. 
2005
HONG
KONG-China’s new electronics companies, lured by riches in foreign markets,
are feeling the bite of well-honed patent protection systems that have become
effective weapons of business war for their competitors.

Such lawsuits filed in the
U.S.would have been considered little more than a nuisance by Chinese firms
just two years ago, carrying little or no clout in China. 

Multinationals are
reluctant to file patent lawsuits in China, where intellectual property (IP)
laws are new and the courts lack experience handling such cases.

But with China’s exports
of machinery and high tech goods reaching $490 billion last year, up 45 percent
from 2003, the threat of being shut out of lucrative western markets has become
a potent deterrent against IP theft by Chinese companies, experts
say.

“The Chinese companies
have to care because if they don’t they face several bad scenarios,” said Tony
Chen, an IP attorney at the law firm of Paul Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. 
“If you lose a lawsuit, the court … could issue an injunction to stop your
product from entering the U.S.  You also face the prospect of very big damages. 
Also, your customers don’t want to be exposed to liabilities.”

Market
competition
In January, U.S. chip designer SigmaTel Inc. sued Zhuhai,
China-based Actions Semiconductor in Texas.  Weeks later, SigmaTel announced a
settlement with Actions co-defendant U.S.-based Sonic Impact, which was using
the Chinese firm’s chips in its MP3 players.

But the main complaint
with Actions has yet to be resolved, said Mike Wodopian, a senior vice president
at SigmaTel.  “At the end of the day, from an overall market perspective the
U.S. is still a huge consumer of these products,” he said, explaining SigmaTel’s
decision to sue in the United States.

Attorneys said the number
of IP lawsuits in the U.S. was relatively small, in the dozens each year.  But
they added the number was growing quickly as companies try to nip new
competition from China in the bud and avoid losing market share the way they did
to aggressive competitors from Japan and later South Korea starting in the
1970s.

While it is difficult for
an outsider to judge the merits of individual cases, and few lawsuits have made
it to trial, foreign companies say Chinese firms routinely copy their
technology, down to highly complicated circuitries and production
processes.

See them in
court
Such cases are not always easily resolved and can drag on for
years.  Most are eventually settled out of court.  One of the earliest, a suit
by Japan’s Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. against Chinese battery maker BYD Co. Ltd.
filed in California in 2002, was resolved earlier this month when the two
companies reached a settlement.

In one of the most high
profile cases to date, and one at the head of the recent wave, Cisco Systems
Inc. in 2003 sued Chinese rising tech star Huawei Technologies in Texas for
alleged IP theft.  The two companies settled the case later that
year.

More recent cases against
Chinese firms, both filed in California, include a suit by a hard drive joint
venture between Hitachi Ltd. and IBM and one by Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s
biggest maker of made-to-order chips, against fast-growing Chinese rival SMIC. 
TSMC and SMIC announced a settlement to their case late last month.

“Cases in the past often
involved Japanese or Taiwanese defendants,” said Sebastian Hughes, an attorney
at the law firm of Preston Gates.  “These days it’s more mainland Chinese
defendants. In some cases, such as SMIC, you have a Taiwanese or Japanese
plaintiff suing in the U.S. It’s come full circle.”

Foreign companies may have
more experience using the U.S. courts, but a growing number of Chinese firms are
also finding they can use the system to their advantage in a range of disputes
with their overseas business partners.

Two Chinese companies sued
a consortium of DVD patent holders, including Philips, Sony, Pioneer and LG
Electronics, alleging cartel-like behavior.

China’s top TV maker,
Sichuan Changhong Electric Appliances Co. Ltd., sued U.S. distributor Apex
Digital Inc. in California in December to recover an alleged $484 million in
unpaid bills.

“The Chinese firms are
drinking from a hydrant, they’re learning,” said Chen of Paul Hastings.”From
the U.S. law firms, the education of Chinese companies about the possibility of
filing lawsuits themselves is getting some effect.”

[Author]

February 26, 2005 at 10:41 AM