AUO Corporation ("AUO" or the "Company") (TAIEX: 2409; NYSE: AUO) today announced that it has been honored with Thomson Reuters Taiwan Innovation Awards 2012. The Award is organized by the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. Four metrics were used to assess the level of innovation of candidate companies, including size of patent portfolio, success rate, extent of globalization, and influence of innovation. AUO Corporation was selected as one of the top five innovative companies in Taiwan. This affirms the Company's excellent achievements in technology R&D and innovative patent development.

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“We are much honored to gain Thomson Reuters Taiwan Innovation Awards 2012,” said Mr. Paul SL Peng, President of AU Optronics. “AUO has long dedicated itself to the research and development of innovative technologies. We utilize the self-developed patents to continuously increase company competitiveness and assets value. The complete patent portfolio is able to support the various news products innovation, and establish a benchmark for the enterprise to constantly advance its technological research and development. ”

“Thomson Reuters Taiwan Innovation Awards 2012” is conducted by the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters for the first time to recognize the most innovative enterprises and academic institutions headquartered in Taiwan for their innovation in Research & Development (R&D). Five corporations and five academic organizations received this recognition, and AU Optronics was among the top five corporations.

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"Patent research and analysis from Thomson Reuters reveals that AU Optronics is a leading innovator in its field, and has therefore been selected as one of the five Corporate sector recipients of the Thomson Reuters Taiwan Innovation Awards 2012,” said Mr. Bob Stembridge, expert patent analyst and manager, customer relations, Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters. “Our research shows that AU Optronics has a large portfolio of innovative inventions protected in global markets such as US and China as well as the Taiwan domestic market. According to our analysis, their innovation is influential in stimulating further technical development with over 40% of their portfolio being cited by later published patents."

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The Award was assessed by the volume of new inventions from Taiwan organizations published between 2009 and 2011. The Derwent World Patents Index? (DWPI) database was used to evaluate the candidate organizations by the number of new unique inventions, ratio of granted patents to all new inventions, number of new inventions with foreign (non-Taiwan) patents in the patent portfolio, and frequency of patent citations by other companies in their technological fields. By using these key performance indices to give a multi-faceted perspective, the final list was determined to identify the Top Taiwan Innovators in the Academic and Corporate sectors.

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As one of the world's leading providers of optoelectronic products, AUO is a technology innovator with strong emphasis on R&D for optoelectronics technologies. Established in 2002 and located in Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, AUO Technology Center is Taiwan's largest R&D facility for optoelectronics, and currently houses more than 3,200 dedicated R&D engineers. As of the end of October 2012, AUO has applied for 17,700 patents and obtained 10,100 patents, which places it number one among Taiwan's flat panel industry.

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Derwent World Patents Index? (DWPISM) is the world's most trusted source of patent information, expertly indexed and featuring enhanced titles and comprehensive abstracts. It provides a record of patents published by 47 patent issuing authorities worldwide to enable a comprehensive picture of activity to be produced. There are over 20.7 million unique inventions covering more than 45.2 million patent records in DWPI.