Acer vs. VW: Litigation due to alleged patent infringement

Just how advanced PC technology is in today’s automotive industry becomes clear at the latest when possible patent infringements are fought out between PC manufacturers and automotive groups. This is now the case with Acer and Volkswagen. Thus, the Taiwanese company accuses the traditional German carmaker of not having paid for its 4G patents.

Acer demands 100 million euros

The amount of damages Acer is claiming is by no means a pittance. In the course of ignoring its duty to pay fees, VW is to pay a whopping 100 million euros. Thus, the carmaker is said to have only paid for 2G and 3G technology. According to Acer, the globally successful automotive group is said to have recently focused primarily on chip technology with 4G. This was reported by the colleagues of the “Wirtschaftswoche”.

However, the place of action is neither Germany nor Europe. Acer filed suit in the US state of Virginia. Of course, VW denies the accusations and rejects them as unfounded. From the company’s point of view, it was not Volkswagen’s responsibility to pay license fees. Rather, this was the responsibility of the suppliers.

Semiconductor shortage threatens automotive sector

Anyone currently ordering a new car not infrequently has to put up with waiting times of around 12 months. This is due to the chip shortage that still prevails. The automotive industry is not spared either. So it’s hardly surprising that VW is annoyed with the chip manufacturers. The automotive group even blames them for the whole mess. It was probably poor calculation and planning on the part of the chip producers that led to the bottlenecks in the automotive industry.

In retrospect, however, it turned out that many carmakers were also partly to blame for the long waiting times. After all, the production volume of new cars was scaled back sharply in 2020. But this trend did not last long. Orders for modern e-cars quickly piled up, making it necessary to resort to more semiconductors again. However, there was now the problem that many chip producers were already allocating their resources elsewhere. In the end, there wasn’t enough left for the carmakers.