E Ink has been bought by the company that makes most of the displays based on its technology.

Taiwan-based Prime View will buy E Ink for $215m.

E Ink will use the funding to further its R&D efforts. It'll be demo'ing a prototype colour display this week at the Society for Information Display conference in San Antonio, Texas, but it needs more cash to turn the screen into a product that can be used in real devices.

E Ink has 150 US electronic ink patents to its name, so Prime's paying round $1.4m per patent.

E Ink's technology - as realised by Prime View - is to be found in all of current e-book readers, including Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader.

News of the deal comes as screen technology company Pixel Qi has begun demo'ing colour e-paper that it's pitching at laptop makers who want to offer outdoor-readable displays on their machines. Pixel Qi reckons it'll have commercial product out by the end of the year. ®

Related stories

• Bendy flash memory raises prospect of flexible displays (16 December 2009)
• Samsung redesigns colour e-paper (30 October 2009)
• Asus eyes e-book biz for Eee extension (27 August 2009)
• UK to get Kindle in Christmas stocking? (16 July 2009)
• Amazon cuts cost of Kindle (9 July 2009)
• Samsung shows off video-capable colour e-paper (10 June 2009)
• HP shows off colour display 'skin' for gadgets (4 June 2009)
• Scientists design picture projection specs (3 June 2009)
• Colour Kindle in development, says Amazon (29 May 2009)
• Next-gen e-book readers to slim down (19 May 2009)
• Boffin builds better display from... a cuttlefish (18 May 2009)
• Samsung unfolds phone with e-ink panel (12 May 2009)
• CES Sony shows 'flexi OLED' curvacious concept kit (10 January 2009)
• Mens mag debuts e-ink cover (8 September 2008)