Berlin - German customs agents swarmed through the IFA
consumer-electronics fair, hunting for non-payers of royalties,
shortly after the expo opened Friday in Berlin.
Led by Berlin prosecutors, the raids were prompted by complaints
from international corporations about alleged illegal copying.
Many of the raids involved patented software used in digital
electronic devices to improve the pictures and the sound. The patent
owners expect royalties or fees every time the software is used. In
Germany, using copyrighted software without a licence is an offence.
Norbert Scheithauer, a Berlin-region spokesman for the German
customs service, said 220 agents had been deployed to seize evidence
at about 50 booths at IFA in the course of Friday.
He denied there was any focus on Asian companies, saying European
manufacturers were being raided too.
IFA is Europe's biggest annual expo of consumer-electronics
products such as flat-panel televisions. This year it includes home
appliances such as washing machines for the first time. IFA, which
runs till Wednesday next week, features 1,245 manufacturers.
However the Berlin fair's ambition to rival the Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) held every January in Las Vegas, Nevada met
with scorn Friday from a senior Panasonic executive, Joachim Reinhart.
In an interview he said he did not perceive the event as upgraded
yet from a German fair into an international one, noting that many of
the public events were conducted in German, rather than in English,
which is much more widely spoken among Asian executives.
Jongwoo Park, the chief executive of South Korean conglomerate
Samsung, addressed IFA visitors, telling them that wirelessly
connecting digital devices from different manufacturers to one another
would be the next step in the 'Digital Revolution.'
USA
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