Elonex Plc, the UK-based PC manufacturer, has settled with a third major company over its power management patents. Last week it revealed that Nokia Oy had agreed to license the patents, which enable PCs to consume less power after user-defined or default time periods through a sleep mode for its European monitor business.
Nokia is the first major monitor maker in Europe to settle over the patents. Last year, Elonex licensed Hewlett-Packard Co in the US and Hitachi Ltd in Japan. Hitachi also agreed to act as Elonex’s agent to enforce the patents in Japan. Elonex’s patents cover over 20 independent claims directed to the power management of PC peripheral devices, including display monitors.
Elonex says it expects other European companies to follow Nokia’s lead. It filed suit against European PC maker Siemens AG last year (CI No 3,493), which itself claims to hold similar patents through its PowerSave technology, and followed it up with lawsuits in the US against Dell Computer Corp, Micron Electronics Inc and Packard Bell NEC Inc (CI No 3,558). It believe infringements could date back around five years.
Meanwhile, Elonex claims it is the first to deliver PCs adopting instant on technology, a closely related area to power management. It says its Instantly Available PCs take advantage of efforts led by Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp such as ACPI Advance Configuration and Power Interface, OnNow and Wired for Management. Intel and Microsoft are planning product introductions in this area later this year. Elonex calculates that businesses with 500 deployed PCs will see total cost of ownership reduced by nearly $11,000 because of the reduced power bills.
