Samsung, Nintendo sued over OLED tech patents
Irish company Solas OLED has filed a lawsuit against Samsung and Nintendo alleging that the companies infringed four of its patents covering organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), a flat light emitting technology.
The complaint was filed at the US District Court for the Western District of Texas on Tuesday, December 7.
According to the filing, the Nintendo Switch OLED (Switch OLED) infringes Solas’ US patents, numbers 7,499,042; 7,573,068; 7,868,880; and 7,663,615.
Solas is an OLED technology licensing company specialising in patented OLED technologies, and its patent portfolio covers OLED structures, display design and architecture, and driver circuitry.
The company has argued that Nintendo’s Switch OLED, incorporates a 7-inch OLED panel that is supplied by Samsung, and “is the latest in a long line of products” by Samsung to implement a display that infringes Solas’ patents.
In a statement, Solas said that Samsung’s “continual and knowingly unauthorised use and infringement of Solas’ patents is emblematic of the irreverent attitude” to the patents owned by others.
“This attitude serves only to erode a system intended to protect and foster innovation; and, Solas will continue to fight to protect the efforts and IP created by others and to stop Samsung’s pervasive pilfering of patented technologies,” said the Dubin-based company.
In March, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found Samsung guilty of infringing Solas’ patents and ordered it to pay more than $60 million.
Samsung’s Galaxy S and Galaxy Note smartphones with flexible touch sensors were found by the federal court to have infringed US patent numbers 7,446,338 and 9,256,311 owned by Solas.
In its latest complaint, Solas argued that despite this ruling, and knowing of Solas’ patents for years, Samsung’s OLED displays continue to embody Solas’ patented technology without an appropriate licence to the patents that cover the OLED technology.
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