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12 July 2019PatentsRory O'Neill

Seoul Semiconductor in LED patent suit

Korean LED manufacturer Seoul Semiconductor has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against online retailer Conrad Electronic in a Dusseldorf court.

In a press release, issued yesterday, July 11, Seoul Semiconductor claimed that Conrad sold backlit mobile phones, which infringed the Korean company’s patent covering LED light extraction technology.

Seoul Semiconductor said that its patent-protected technology significantly increases the brightness emitted from a phone due to the claimed method of LED chip fabrication.

“Seoul has already warned LED backlight unit suppliers of global mobile phones to cease using products suspected of infringement,” the Korean company said.

The company said that it has been active in defending its IP from alleged infringement.

“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,” the statement said.

Last December, WIPR  reported that Seoul Semiconductor had succeeded in a patent infringement suit brought by Taiwanese competitor Everlight Electronics.

The previous month, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Japanese company Enplas Corporation infringed two of Seoul Semiconductor’s patents covering LED technology used in flat screen TVs.

The Korean company claimed that most premium mobile phones also use one of its subsidiary’s patent protected flash light technology without authorisation.

Seoul Semiconductor’s vice president of IT business, Sam Ryu, said that “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”.

WIPR has contacted Conrad Electronic for comment.

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More on this story

Patents
12 December 2018   South Korean LED producer Seoul Semiconductor has prevailed in patent litigation brought by Taiwanese competitor Everlight Electronics in Germany.
Patents
6 September 2019   South Korean LED producer Seoul Semiconductor has filed a second patent infringement lawsuit against European retailer Conrad Electronic.