Texas Instruments Gets Patent Agreement

Tue., May 25, 1999

From Staff

Texas Instruments Inc., the world’s biggest maker of semiconductors for cellular phones, said it will get $1 billion over 10 years in a cross-licensing agreement with Hyundai Electronics Industries Co. that settles all patent litigation between the chipmakers.

The Dallas company will receive royalty payments from sales of Hyundai integrated circuits retroactively from 1997 through 2007. The payments will add about 12 cents a share to second-quarter earnings.

Texas Instruments, which has a vast patent portfolio on inventions dating to the 1950s, has collected billions of dollars in claims from other high-tech companies. In March, a federal jury ordered Hyundai, one of South Korea’s three biggest electronics makers, to pay $25.2 million for infringing on two patents in one of several suits between the companies.

Excluding yesterday’s agreement, analysts estimate Texas Instruments has collected more than $4 billion in royalties from high-tech companies since it began enforcing its patents in the mid-1980s. The company’s inventions include the transistor radio, integrated circuit, digital watch and the hand-held calculator.

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Texas Instruments Gets Patent Agreement

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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