PAE

This week, Realtek sued rival MediaTek in Northern California federal court, accusing it of conspiring against it with a patent holder in a bid to drive Realtek out of business. Reuters reports that Realtek asserts that MediaTek intends to monopolize the markets of smart TVs and set-top-boxes and asks the court to protect itself from the ongoing injury and the market from unfair competition practices. It is not a secret that various patent assertion entities (PAE), a juridical term for patent hoarders, acquire patents and then sue different designers for royalties. In 2019, MediaTek entered into a patent license agreement with Future Link and its owner IPValue to license some of the patents issued initially to NXP Semiconductor and Philips. While this would be a...