Canon clear to launch new type of TV

By Robin Harding December 2 2008

Canon, the Japanese consumer electronics group, is clear to launch a new type of television after winning a patent lawsuit that has delayed its progress for more than three years. Nasdaq-listed Applied Nanotech, which had sued the Japanese company for illegally sublicensing its patents, told the Financial Times that it had decided not to appeal to the US Supreme Court. "It would probably be a futile effort," said Douglas Baker, Applied Nanotech's chief financial officer. Canon can now press ahead with televisions based on surface-conduction electron-emitter displays, or SED. Such TVs can produce the wide viewing angle and deep colours of a traditional cathode-ray television, but are as thin as a liquid-crystal or plasma display. SED is a rival technology to organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, a system backed by Sony and Samsung, and could shake up the huge market for televisions and monitors. Canon showed SED prototypes in 2006, but has yet to prove that it can mass produce televisions at a competitive price. Tsuneji Uchida, Canon's president, told the FT: "In regards to SED, we have a new production process we're working on which is cost competitive with liquid crystal displays." Canon sees displays as a natural complement to its existing business of cameras, printers and copiers.

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