Matsushita Electric Corporation of America (MECA) was the principal U.S. subsidiary of Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Osaka), the manufacturer behind the Panasonic, Technics and Quasar brands. MECA was established in September 1959 in New York and later headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey, before moving to Two Riverfront Plaza, Newark, NJ. It was a wholly owned subsidiary. Effective January 1, 2005, MECA formally renamed itself Panasonic Corporation of North America (PNA); the parent became Panasonic Corporation in October 2008 and is today Panasonic Holdings Corporation (TSE: 6752). Historical size: MECA reported roughly $4.3 billion in North American sales and 9,500 employees (1989, per The New York Times). Current headcount and revenue are not attributed to MECA/PNA here.
MECA imported, manufactured, marketed and serviced consumer and business electronics — Panasonic-branded televisions, audio equipment and components — and was the North American hub for R&D, manufacturing, sales and service across dozens of Matsushita entities. Its divisions included Panasonic Automotive Electronics Company (established 1998, Southfield, MI), supplying entertainment systems to automakers. It was an operating company, not a patent-assertion vehicle.
Litigation posture: MECA appears in the tracked data once, exclusively as a defendant (0 plaintiff, 0 other cases) — consistent with an operating company targeted by an IP-licensing plaintiff. The case sits in N.D. Cal. (Oakland), a venue the Japanese manufacturer group used proactively for declaratory-judgment claims; related patent-assertion filings by the plaintiff/its partner went to the plaintiff-friendly Eastern District of Texas.
Notable case: Patriot Scientific Corp. v. Sony Electronics Inc. et al., N.D. Cal. (Oakland). Patriot Scientific, a small San Diego IP-licensing firm (reported eight employees), sued Matsushita and other Japanese PC makers beginning in 2003–2004 over microprocessor patents, including U.S. 5,809,336 ("High Performance Microprocessor Having Variable Speed System Clock"). Patriot voluntarily dismissed its infringement claims in October 2005 and transferred litigation to its joint-venture partner, the TPL Group, which filed in E.D. Tex. over the Moore Microprocessor Patent Portfolio; roughly 20 Japanese manufacturers countersued for declaratory judgment in Oakland. The disputes were settled in December 2007 with licensing rights granted to Toshiba, Matsushita (Panasonic) and JVC.