A ChungnamNationalUniversity academic complained this week that Microsoft was jamming South Korea’s patent office with applications to stifle local software developers and open-source players in general.

“Microsoft applied for patents in the single digit in the late 2000s,” the Korea Times reported Lee Chul-nam as saying. “The total in 2004 and 2005 amounts to more than 1,000.”

Saying firms relied on patents to compensate for research costs, Mr. Lee said Microsoft’s strategy “appears to be an attempt to check rivals via exclusive intellectual-property rights.”

Microsoft filed just six patent applications in Seoul in 2000, according to the report, before the number soared from 122 in 2003 to 500 in 2004 and hit 591 last year.

“This compares to top-tier domestic software makers such as Haansoft and TmaxSoft,” the Times continued. “Haansoft has applied for a mere five patents since its establishment in 1990 while TmaxSoft has applied for none.”

TmaxSoft Vice President Lee Kang-man sees foul play. “Korean software producers do not pay attention to patents,” the Times quoted him as saying. “Microsoft may gain patents for widely used, but non-patented, technologies to prevent us from selling our own programs that are based on those technologies.”

Haansoft Chief Executive Baek Jong-jin had seen it all before: “Microsoft has constantly interrupted our business in various ways,” the daily reported him saying. “The company once tried to phase one of our programs—Hancom Office—out of the market.”

The story of how its Hangul versions of Word, Excel, and other applications were saved from Microsoft’s giant wrecking ball showed heroic Koreans punching back, but there’s no time to retell that here. The Times cited one local analyst saying Microsoft’s moves in Korea were part of a global effort to contain open-source activity.

Acer Signals Shift on Acquisitions

Acer Chairman Wang Jeng-tang hinted the company would break with tradition and consider acquisitions to gain more share in the personal computer market.

“We have not considered buying other PC brands in the past, but we are now open to the possibility,” he told visitors to the company’s 30th birthday party in Taipei. Acer would also replace Lenovo as the world’s No. 3 PC maker next year, the Taipei Times reported Mr. Wang as saying.

Right now, Lenovo has 7.5 percent share of the global PC market, and Acer 5.9 percent.

The bold plan is to beat its cross-strait rival with desktops, which still account for 60 percent of the world’s computers—leaving Acer more room to grow, according to Mr. Wang.

Citing Gartner data, the paper said Acer posted the highest third-quarter growth of all the top five PC makers—with 33.4 percent. Toshiba came next with 30.5 percent, and Hewlett-Packard third with 15.4 percent. And all this naturally brings us to the next story—exploding laptops.

Sparky Sony Adapter in Sydney

Sony batteries in Dell and Toshiba notebooks are one thing, but why not try a Sony power adapter in a Vaio and really light up the night sky? “Sony Laptop Almost Burns House Down,” declared a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald with just a touch of hyperbole.

“When Scott returned home last Friday afternoon, his nostrils were singed by the acrid smell of burning plastic that filled his apartment,” the drama began.

“After some searching, he isolated the smell to his five-year-old Sony Vaio notebook (model number PCG-R505AFT), which he left switched on while he was out in order to complete a virus scan.” (Turned out it wasn’t your typical lithium ion battery-type fire, but the “adapter melting on the sofa…”)

But then the Herald added a detail that might have induced someone to rethink the headline: “Scott returned home early enough to disconnect the adaptor from the power source, before it could start a fire.”

A footnote: Sony did apparently offer to take a look at the power adapter, but wouldn’t cover the courier costs to get it to its repair center. Since August, 7.5 million Sony-made laptop batteries have been recalled, and Sony has estimated that 9.6 million will need to be recalled.

559 Positions in Osaka

The massage chair business, mostly centered in Osaka for some reason, is in a frenzy trying to duplicate a masseur’s bone-tingling magic.

Fuji Medical Instruments, the Japan Times reported, started selling a new Cyber-Relax series chair that offers 559 different types of massages, up from 514 last year. Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. is staying focused on its 2005 release called Real Pro X, which mimics a masseur’s grip.

“For the ‘grip massage,’ four balls in the chair’s back move up and down,” the Japan Times reported. Tax included, the chairs sell in the ¥500,000 ($4,200) range, peanuts for anyone looking for a daily rub. About 400,000 units sell a year in Japan, with market leader Matsushita holding 30 percent share.

Contact the writer:JMcCormick@RedHerring.com

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