Hanwang Technology, a Chinese manufacturer of e-readers and portable devices, has been criticized by US-based software company ExperExchange for covering the intellectual property dispute between the two companies one day after Hanwang issued its prospectus and sponsorship work report.
The negative information could interfere with Hanwang's IPO launch on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's small- and medium-sized enterprise board, the 21st Century Business Herald reported.
ExperExchange told the newspaper that they informed Hanwang to deliver the case to Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre at the end of January, but the e-reader maker did not disclose this fact in the prospectus or sponsorship work report, which they say will invade shareholders' interests.
Wang Honggang with Hanwang told the reporter as the arbitration has not officially launched, they will not disclose the issue to the public. "What they said is not true. The arbitration has not started and we did not encroach on their intellectual property rights," Wang explained.
In 2002, Hanwang signed an agreement with ExperExchange to apply optical character recognition (OCR) technology in three of its products and renewed the contract in 2006.
In 2009, ExperExchange discovered Hanwang used the OCR technology in dozens of its other products and produced hundreds of thousands of copies in Chinese market. Later ExperExchange sued Hanwang in the Tianjin No 1 Intermediate People's Court, but the case was turned down by the court and submitted to Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.
No final decision was made yet, but the case disclosed might affect Hanwang's nearing IPO, the report said.
Hanwang said in a statement on Tuesday that it would float 27 million shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's small and medium-sized enterprise board, raising 249 million yuan ($36.47 million) to fund technology upgrades and product research.
Source: China Daily
