Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, June 7 (Xinhua)-- chipmaker Realtek Semiconductor Corp sued rival MediaTek Inc in federal court in northern California on Tuesday, accusing rival MediaTek of reaching a secret agreement with a company specializing in patent lawsuits to pay a "litigation reward" to launch an unfounded patent lawsuit against Ruiyu in an attempt to disrupt Ruiyu's business and monopolize the market for smart TVs and set-top box chips.

In its complaint, Ruiyu claimed that MediaTek signed a patent licensing agreement with Future Link Systems LLC, a subsidiary of IPValue Management Inc, in 2019, which included a secret "litigation reward" agreement, which was exposed last year in a patent lawsuit involving Future Link in the US Federal Court of West Texas and the US International Trade Commission (ITC). Ruiyu said Future Link had been trying to hide the details of the agreement "under confidentiality obligations and protection orders".

Ruiyu said MediaTek used the patent lawsuits to try to remove its suspected infringing chips from the market and hinted to customers that Ruiyu might be an "unreliable supplier" to the TV chip industry. Ruiyu asked the court to order the two companies to stop the so-called conspiracy and claim compensation for an unknown amount of money.

MediaTek has nearly 60% of the global TV chip market, according to the complaint. Ruiyu said in a statement that it filed the lawsuit to "protect free and fair competition in the industry" and to "prevent further harm to the public".

As of CTOnews.com 's release, MediaTek and IPValue had not commented on the lawsuit.

ITC has called the agreement "shocking" and said it was "likely to be improper and accountable", while the West Texas court called it "inappropriate" and "subject to public policy". After ITC's criticism, Future Link quickly settled patent lawsuits with a number of technology companies, including MediaTek rival Amlogic.

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