Acer Slaps Volkswagen With 4G Patent Lawsuit – Report

Taiwanese PC maker Acer has reportedly sued German car giant Volkswagen for not paying it fees associated with its mobile network patents.

Reuters cited German weekly business magazine WirtschaftsWoche as reporting on Tuesday that Acer had filed a lawsuit against in the US state of Virginia.

The Taiwanese PC maker alleges that Volkswagen had only paid for licences for 2G and 3G patents, but had largely installed mobile phone chips with 4G technology in the past two years.

Patent lawsuit

But Volkswagen is contesting lawsuit, and described Acer’s allegations as unfounded.

“We will examine the suit together with our suppliers and will then decide how to proceed,” Volkswagen told Reuters.

“At first glance we have indications that the allegations and accusations made in it are unfounded and we will defend our position,” the car maker reportedly added, while declining to provide further details.

Last week the UK government decided that the UK’s second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) mobile networks will be switched off in 2033.

2G (and 2.5G/GPRS) networks were first introduced back in the 1990s, and are still used today for mobile calls and text messages. The first commercial 3G networks arrived in the UK in 2003, and offered painfully slow (by today’s standards) browsing capabilities.

Chip shortage

Volkswagen is one of the companies that has been contending with the ongoing chip shortage that is ravaging certain industries, including car makers.

In February this year, Volkswagen took the unusual step of publicly blaming the chip makers themselves for the supply shortage.

Volkswagen said at the time that bad planning on the part of its suppliers compounded the chip shortage blighting the global car industry, and claimed it had given ample notice that the coronavirus’ hit to car production would be limited.

It came after reports indicated that the chip shortage for car makers was mostly because car makers had scaled back their silicon orders with Chinese and Taiwanese factories making the chips because of poor sales of new cars in early 2020.

But when the Coronavirus pandemic failed to dent demand for new cars and new electronics, car makers were surprised that their manufacturing slots had been given to other clients.

Countless car makers have been forced to close or suspend production at multiple factories around the world due to the chip shortage.