Nanoco sues Samsung over quantum dots patent infringement
UK-based nanotechnology company Nanoco Technologies is suing South Korean technology giant Samsung for five patent infringements relating to its quantum dot technology used in LED TVs.
“Quantum dots created using Nanoco’s patented innovations have improved the visual aspects of consumer electronic display devices and made their large-scale synthesis and implementation commercially viable,” said its Friday, February 14 filing, at the US District Court Eastern District of Texas.
“Accordingly, quantum dots created by Nanoco’s patented innovations have become fundamental components of many premium LED TV models,” it added.
A quantum dot display uses tiny crystalline particles to produce red, green, and blue light.
Samsung engaged with Nanoco in 2010 in order to evaluate “Nanoco’s quantum dot technology for use in the emission material of Samsung’s LCD modules”, and as part of this engagement “Nanoco provided samples of its quantum dots to Samsung”, said the filing.
However, further discussions between the two companies did not result in a licence for Samsung to use Nanoco’s patented innovations, or an agreement for Nanoco to provide Samsung with its patented quantum dots.
“Nevertheless, after Nanoco disclosed its technology to Samsung, Samsung debuted a TV comprising quantum dots for the first time at 2015’s Consumer Electronics Show,” said the filing, and the South Korean tech giant then began “incorporating cadmium-free quantum dot technology in its TV displays when it launched its newly-branded, premium QLED TV in 2017”.
Samsung has “placed or contributed to placing infringing products including, but not limited to, Samsung’s QLED TVs into the stream of commerce knowing or understanding that such products would be sold and used in the US, including in this Judicial District”, claimed Nanoco, which was born from a university research group founded in 2001.
“Samsung has also derived substantial revenues from infringing acts,” said Nanoco, which added that it had “been awarded hundreds of patents and amassed one of the largest IP portfolios” in quantum dot technology.
Numerous companies have licensed Nanoco’s quantum dot patents, and Nanoco has also entered joint development agreements with major electronics companies in connection with the use of Nanoco’s cadmium-free quantum dots.
Nanoco is asking that the court enter judgment that Samsung has wilfully “infringed, and continues to directly infringe, one or more claims of the patents”, and order the South Korean company “to account for and pay damages caused to Nanoco by the defendant’s unlawful acts of patent infringement”.
The patents in question are US numbers 7,588,828, 7,803,423, 7,867,557, 8,524,365, and 9,680,068. Nanoco is demanding a jury trial.
Samsung Electronics, Samsung Display, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Samsung Electronics (Visual Display Division), and Samsung Electronics America were all named in the action.
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