Ciba Specialty Chemicals sent out a press release this morning, announcing
that they've decided to settle the patent infringment lawsuit they had filed against CMC and its US subsidiary, the Hotan
Corporation.
The patent infringement law suit Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corporation (Ciba) had filed against CMC Magnetics
Corporation and its US subsidiary Hotan Corporation has been settled, CMC Corporation and Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corporation, have
announced today. Ciba had sued CMC and Hotan because it had found that some portion of CD-R manufactured, imported and sold by CMC and
Hotan were produced with dye infringing Ciba's phthalocyanine and related CD-R media patents. Ciba holds worldwide patents for its
advanced phthalocyanine dyes and disks, which include the United States of America, China and Taiwan, where CMC had produced the media. A
CMC spokesperson commented: "We were not fully aware of the current dye technology and the related patent situation. After clarification
from Ciba, we realize the importance of the technology of the Ciba dye in the dye industry. We regret that we had used for part of our
CD-R production a dye from a local supplier that turned out to infringe Ciba's dye and media patents. After this incident we had
instantly improved our internal processes to make sure that intellectual property rights are respected and switched back to Ciba's
product."
If you'd like to read more, Ciba's entire press release can be found here.
