Taiwan's economic ministry expects semiconductor and display panel industries on the island to take a hit from the earthquake in Japan last week as supplies are suspended due to factory damage or transportation snarls, translating in some cases to higher manufacturing costs.

IBM garnered 4914 U.S. patents in 2009, setting an all-time high for Big Blue and maintaining its lead against competitors such as Samsung with 3611 patents and Microsoft with 2906.

Japanese electronics maker Epson Imaging Devices has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $US26 million fine for the company's role in a conspiracy to fix prices of thin film transistor-liquid crystal display panels sold to Motorola, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Seiko Epson has made an advance in ink-jet technology that could be used to mass-produce large OLED (organic LED) screens by the middle of the next decade, making them more competitive with rival technologies for big-screen TVs.