Canon/Toshiba telly venture collapses

THE RELEASE of Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Displays (SED) is getting bogged down in legal problems.

The technology was supposed to be the best and most energy efficient TVs to hit the market. Canon and Toshiba created a joint venture called SED, in 2004 to work on the technology.

However according to CEPRO.com, SED is being sued by Nano-Proprietary, a company that licensed SED technology to Canon in 1999. Nano-Proprietarysays that the $5.6 million deal it signed with Canon did not include Toshiba. Rather than fight the lawsuit and prolong the development of the technology even further, Canon has bought Toshiba out.

Canon wanted to use Toshiba for its "mass-production technologies" and the outfit was going to build SED a $1.5 billion factory in Japan to crank out the sets.

Canon thinks that SED television will be introduced in Japan in the fourth quarter of this year as originally planned. But admits that it will have to come up with some alternative system of mass production.

Meanwhile the court case is continuing. Nano-Proprietary says that Canon should have told it about Toshiba's involvement and is suing anyway. µ