Taiwan's largest producer of optical discs, CMC Magnetics, has signed up for the Veeza CD-R patent licensing scheme making it the second Veeza licensee in Taiwan after Ritek, according to DigiTimes. Unfortunately, by taking on the Veeza licensing, this is expected to push up CD-R pricing from 8% to 10% over the next quarter.
CMC and Ritek who both have taken on the Veeza licensing account for over 50% of the global CD-R disc supply according to industry sources. To help enforce the Veeza licensing, Philips is aiming to discourage large retailers from importing CD-R discs that lack a Veeza license. Several other Taiwanese CD-R disc makers such as Prodisc Technology and Lead Data are in decisions on whether to take on Veeza.
Back in January, Royal Philips Electronics introduced Veeza, its new method of licensing CD-R patents. A Veeza license requires shipments to be accompanied by a mandatory authenticity document, a Veeza logo embedded in the disc and a label on the carton packaging mentioning the serial number to make it easy to prove whether or not a shipment of CD-R discs is licensed by Philips' patents.
