Philips Withdraws From UHD Alliance, Westinghouse Joins, Says DOJ Notice

Philips withdrew from the UHD Alliance, the association told DOJ and the FTC in simultaneous “written notifications” Oct. 15, per a notice in Tuesday’s Federal Register from Suzanne Morris, chief of the Premerger and Division Statistics Unit in Justice’s Antitrust Division. The change-of-membership notifications are required to extend UHDA members antitrust protections under the 1993 National Cooperative Research and Production Act, said Morris. HiSilicon Technologies also withdrew from UHDA, while Westinghouse Electronics joined, she said. UHDA President Mike Fidler confirmed Philips departed, but deferred to the company for comment. "I can tell you that the work with the UHD Alliance continues with TP Vision covering the key Phillips products that are being developed for UHD," emailed Fidler Tuesday. TP Vision is licensed to make and market Philips-branded TVs in most world markets outside North America, where Funai, which is not a UHDA member, holds the Philips-brand rights. “As the UHDA activity is focused from a hardware perspective on TV manufacturers, we decided the best representation for the global Philips TV brand would be TP Vision," emailed Philips spokesperson Marty Gordon. Meanwhile, IEEE has "initiated" 500 new standards and revised 360 existing ones, the group told DOJ and FTC in NCRPA notifications Sept. 10. That's according to Morris in a separate, unrelated DOJ notice to be published in Wednesday's Federal Register.