A patent shame: how a thriving French hi-tech company has been stripped bare by its US owner
The fate of a small but flourishing telecommunications R&D company in Brittany, western France, is yet one more example of a takeover where financial interests are allowed to trample over all other concerns. At the end of this month, the 170 employees of Renesas Design France are due to laid off and the company closed down after its purchase by a US semiconductor firm which is transferring all of the French company’s numerous hi-tech patents and know how abroad. “Fifteen years of investment, research and development, of collective know-how, of aid from the state and local authorities have gone up in smoke,” said one staff representative. “It is an indescribable waste. We are going to lose skills that may take decades to recover.” Martine Orange reports.
RenesasRenesas Design France was a successful high-tech research and development company specialized in telecommunications which has created numerous innovations for the mobile phone industry, and which was latterly chosen by Samsung to provide key components for the Korean manufacturer’s future 4G LT mobiles.
