CHS disregards lawsuit facing Trigem

CHS Electronics has chosen to ignore a lawsuit issued by Compaq on Trigem over alleged trademark infringements and will continue its partnership with the South Korean PC maker.

Compaq issued a lawsuit last week against emachines, its parent company Trigem and Korean Data Systems, citing a total of 13 alleged patent infringements.

The complaint centres around the etower 333cs, 333id, and 366i models, which Compaq is alleging use technologies that it owns the rights to, without its permission.

But despite the writ, CHS vowed to continue supplying emachines, branded as Yakumo, after signing a European agreement with the Taiwanese manufacturer (PC Dealer, 7 July). The deal will see Trigem produce low-end emachines at CHS' Dutch manufacturing plant, while the distributor will provide logistics and sell the product.

Peter Rigby, director of marketing and communications at CHS, said: "We are aware of the lawsuit against Trigem, but until we see what the likely outcome is, we don't foresee any problems with our own agreement. These things can take years to sort out and it's impossible to tell what will happen. We're not going to wait about until there is a resolution."

Rigby claimed emachines had become a victim of its own success, attracting the attention of the PC manufacturers that continuously looked at competitors' machines to protect their technology.

The lawsuit comes as Compaq admitted that it will axe up to 8,000 of its workforce by the end of the year despite reporting a slightly smaller than expected second-quarter loss.

Compaq refused to comment on the lawsuit.