US Philips Corporation announced today that it has filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) against 19 optical disc manufacturers and U.S. based trading companies for infringement of Philips patents covering Compact Disc-Recordable (CD-R) and Compact Disc-Rewritable (CD-RW) technologies. The companies named include: ACME Production Industries; Bregusa Micro International LLC; Digital Storage Technology Co., Ltd.; DiscsDirect.Com; Gigastorage Corporation Taiwan; Gigastorage Corporation USA; Jacsonic Group; J & E Enterprises, Inc.; KingPro Mediatek Inc.; Linberg Enterprise Inc; NewEgg.Com, Inc.; PNY Technologies, Inc.; QTC Computer Systems, Inc.; STI Certified Products, Inc.; Symmetry Group, Inc.; Tiger Direct, Inc.; TKO Media Inc.; U.S. Digital Media, Inc.; and Xtraplus Corporation.

Philips asserts that the 19 companies have infringed certain of its patents by manufacturing for sale, or selling imported CD-R and CD-RW discs in the United States without having any license under the patents. In the complaint, Philips asked the ITC to issue an order excluding importation of all unlicensed discs into the United States so that the more than 70 manufacturers currently licensed by Philips to make CD-Rs and CD-RWs are not at a competitive disadvantage to the infringing imports.

With more than 75,000 patent rights, 22,000 trademark registrations, 6000 design registrations and some 900 domain name registrations, Philips is a major technology provider by granting licenses to third parties. The company emphasized that it places great importance on protecting its innovations through intellectual property rights (IPRs).