ANSAN, South Korea–Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890) (“Seoul”), a global manufacturer of LED technology, has announced that it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Conrad Electronic S.E. (“Conrad”), a large European retailer of electronic products. The lawsuit was filed in Germany in the District Court of Düsseldorf.
According to the complaint, LEDs in backlit mobile phones sold by Conrad are infringing Seoul’s patent for LED light extraction technology. The patent covers fundamental LED chip fabrication technology to extract light efficiently, significantly enhancing brightness. Conrad is currently selling hundreds of different models of Korean, U.S. and China mobile phones.
Seoul has already warned LED backlight unit suppliers of global mobile phones to cease using products suspected of infringement. Seoul investigates mobile phones incorporating such products and will consider whatever legal enforcement is necessary if such infringement continues unabated.
Seoul has established significant LED backlight patents applicable to TVs and mobile phones for enhancing brightness, color qualities, and power consumption reduction of LEDs. In recent litigations, Seoul has asserted 68 of its patents, including five patent litigations involving LED TVs utilizing backlight technology, including against Philips TV products.
“Sensor Electronic Technology, Inc., a subsidiary of Seoul, has also patented fundamental technology for controlling multiple colors to enhance the color quality of mobile phone flash lights,” added Sam Ryu, Seoul’s Vice President of IT business. “We believe that most premium mobile phones are using this technology without authorization. This is a problem that Seoul and its related companies will seek to resolve, because if LED companies do business fairly, it is virtually impossible to produce LEDs that are applied to mobile phones without utilizing these patents.”
Tagged with lightED, Seoul Semiconductor