Business briefs

10 Mar 2006

Including news from Toshiba, Canon, Lucent Technologies, Nichia, Lumileds and more.

•  Toshiba and Canon will begin the first stage of mass production of surface-conduction electron-emitter displays (SEDs) in July 2007 and plan to launch SED televisions in Q4 of 2007. The companies see the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as an ideal opportunity to promote SED TVs.

•  Nichia has abandoned its claim to the infamous 404 patent which was at the heart of the legal battle between the company and former employee Shuji Nakamura. The patent describes technology for growing high-quality gallium nitride epilayers, essential for manufacturing blue LEDs. Nichia says that it has developed a production system that does not use the technology and is satisfied that it no longer needs the patent.

•  The United States District Court for the District of Delaware has ruled in favor of Corning in a patent infringement suit between Corning and fellow US firm SRU Biosystems. The court ruled that a patent exclusively licensed to Corning for optical biosensors was fully enforceable. The court added that Corning was entitled to a permanent injunction against SRU Biosystems, which infringed on the disputed patent.

•  Melles Griot and Coherent have terminated their agreement which had seen Coherent marketing Melles Griot helium-neon (HeNe) lasers under the Coherent name. Customers will now purchase HeNe lasers directly for Melles Griot. "Those customers who previously purchased HeNe lasers from Coherent will now have direct access to our manufacturing capacity, broad engineering disciplines and most importantly our long term commitment to this technology," said Emery Skarupa, general manager for Melles Griot’s laser group.

•  Lucent Technologies has officially opened an office in Hanoi, Vietnam. Located in the Vincom Tower in the Hai Ba Trung district of Hanoi, the office will be headed up by Quyen Ngo and gives Lucent additional presence in the SouthEast Asia region.

•  JDSU's pump laser manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, was evacuated and quarantined last Friday (March 3) after what the company described as an “incident”. Twelve employees were taken to local hospitals where one was admitted for overnight observation and released the following day. The facility has now re-opened and the company adds that none of the hospitalised employees tested positive for exposure to any materials from the facility.

•  Lumileds has named Promate as an official distributor of Lumileds’ LED die products in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.

•  Philips of the Netherlands has sold all of its shares in Anteryon. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Anteryon manufactures a range of professional optical products for the industrial optics, imaging and display, and data and telecom markets.