The patent infringement law suit Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corporation (Ciba) had filed against CMC Magnetics Corporation and its US subsidiary Hotan Corporation has been settled, CMC and Ciba have announced today. Ciba had sued CMC and Hotan because it had found that some portion of CD-R manufactured, imported and sold by CMC and Hotan were produced with dye infringing Ciba's phthalocyanine and related CD-R media patents. Ciba holds worldwide patents for its advanced phthalocyanine dyes and disks, which include the United States of America, China and Taiwan, where CMC had produced the media.

A CMC spokesperson commented: "We were not fully aware of the current dye technology and the related patent situation. After clarification from Ciba, we realize the importance of the technology of the Ciba dye in the dye industry. We regret that we had used for part of our CD-R production a dye from a local supplier that turned out to infringe Ciba's dye and media patents. After this incident we had instantly improved our internal processes to make sure that intellectual property rights are respected and switched back to Ciba's product."

From Ciba's side a spokesperson added: "We appreciate that CMC has been co-operative in settling this matter and will adopt effective measures to avoid future infringement. We are pleased that the case could be settled on this basis."

Further details of the settlement agreement were not disclosed.