USITC: GE, Home Depot didn’t infringe university’s LED patents
General Electric, Home Depot and Ikea did not infringe patents covering vintage style bulbs held by the University of California, according to the US International Trade Commission (ITC).
In a notice posted on the agency’s electronic docket on November 22, ITC Judge Clark Cheney confirmed that he found no violation of the university’s IP rights.
Judge Cheney’s findings are subject to review by the full commission, which is scheduled to complete the investigation by March 21 next year. The USITC launched its investigation back in September 2020.
The university sought an order, barring imports of such bulbs made by the companies, and demanding that they commit to licensing agreements
Filed in August 2020, the university’s complaint alleged that the companies violated section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 relating to the importation and sale of “light bulbs containing filament light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lighting products containing filament LEDs”, and infringed patents owned by the university.
The university owns four patents: US numbers 924, 529, 9,589,464,10,593,854, 10,658,557. that it claimed in its complaint are “fundamental to a new generation of light bulbs” powered by LED technology.
According to UC, the suit is about “protecting the reinvention of the light bulb” by a Nobel-laureate team at the university.
The bulbs are designed to imitate the iconic look of ones developed by GE founder Thomas Edison, inventor of the first mass-marketed bulb.
The team at UC was led by Japanese-American scientist Shuji Nakamura, who won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on creating blue LEDs.
In 2019, the university filed what its lawyers have called a “first-of-its-kind” patent litigation campaign against retailers of LED lightbulbs, including Walmart, Ikea, Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Target.
Last week, WIPR reported that Chinese lighting company Zhejiang Super Lighting Electric Appliance had been awarded more than $14 million over the infringement of three patents related to its LED lighting tube patents.
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