NEC to boost intellectual property sales

TOKYO: Japanese chip and electronics giant NEC Corp said on Tuesday it would
expand its sales of proprietary technology and patents, aiming for annual sales
of 50 billion yen ($375.1 million) within three years.

Japan's second largest chipmaker said it planned to market its 68,509 patents
-- the most held by a Japanese firm -- as a way to boost patent-related revenues
from about 10 billion yen a year.

Japan's chipmakers, forced by harsh competition to shut plants, cut jobs and
exit the memory chip market they once ruled, are going cold on
mass-manufacturing and are seeking new ways to profit from their top-notch
technology, including milking maximum value from their patents.

NEC, which is also Japan's largest PC supplier, set up a 75 member department
on Monday to oversee its intellectual property assets -- mostly in fields like
semiconductors and telecommunications -- and negotiate with outside firms.
"We plan to sell either the patent rights themselves, or collect licensing
fees from companies that want to use the patents," a company spokesman
said.

NEC has trailed only International Business Machines Corp in the number of
registered patents in the United States since 1999. But its current annual
patent licensing income ranks well below IBM's, which totaled about $736 million
in 2001, down from $915 million the previous year.

NEC has forecast a group net loss of 300 billion yen for the year ended March
31.