Canon-Toshiba Joint Venture On SED Collapses

An anonymous reader writes "SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) displays were supposed to be the brightest, most energy-efficient TVs to hit the market, so Canon and Toshiba created a joint venture in 2004 to capitalize on the emerging technology. The resulting entity, SED Inc., was sued in 2005 by Nano-Proprietary, the company that licensed SED technology to Canon in 1999. Nano-Proprietary says that the deal it signed with Canon doesn't extend to Toshiba. Rather than continue to fight the lawsuit and delay SED even further, Canon has now decided to buy out Toshiba's stake in SED Inc." Canon says that SED TVs will be delivered on time in Q4 of this year, but volume manufacturing (which Toshiba was supposed to handle) is being rethought.

Comments

Usage of the word exploit

[SuperBanana]

But Toshiba will probably hate Cannon temporarily, especially with the "Canon had planned to exploit Toshiba for its 'mass-production technologies,'" remark.

Exploit is a transitive verb with two meanings/usages. "To make productive use of", and "to use unfairly to one's advantage."

Brinkmanship

[stox]

Canon is betting that Nano-Proprietary will capitulate now that their revenue stream is cut to zero for the time being. I suspect that we will see Canon and Toshiba back together in the near future once Nano-Proprietary caves in.