LED Patent News: ATG, Philips, Everlight, Nichia, OLEDWorks, Osram, Samsung, Dominant

ATG Electronics joins Philips’ SSL licensing program

LED lighting manufacturer ATG Electronics has obtained a license under Philips’ LED Luminaires and Retrofit Bulbs license program.

ATG Electronics Corp. was established in 1999 and later formed partnerships with companies in California. ATG designs, produces and distributes LED-based illumination and decoration lighting systems.

Through the license agreement with Philips, ATG Electronics has obtained access to basic system and control technologies for LED luminaires and retrofit bulbs.

“As the world’s No.1 solution provider for indoor lighting retrofit products, we believe that intellectual property is the basis for a company’s continued development,” said Nick Ni, president of ATG.

“We are pleased to have the agreement with Philips, which grants us access to a comprehensive patent portfolio and opens up new opportunities for us as a leading company in the development of the LED industry.”

ATG recently received multiple utility patents and a design patent in China for its LED products.

Everlight fights back in LED patent battle against Nichia

Tawian-based LED maker Everlight has filed an unfair competition lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court against Nichia, a Japanese rival. Everlight says that it has “decided to fight back” against Nichia, claiming that Nichia has “affected fair competitive market mechanisms by filing patent-infringement lawsuits” – lawsuits that Everlight describes as “baseless.”

In October of this year, for example, Nichia filed lawsuits against a Japanese distributor of Everlight’s LED products.

LED patent disputes between Everlight and Nichia date back to 2006, when Nichia brought a patent-infringement lawsuit against Everlight in Taiwan and sought damages of NTD 80 million. However, according to Everlight’s press release, the patent in question (patent no. 089036) was eventually ruled invalid earlier this year.

GOT and OLEDWorks sign OLED patent license agreement

OLEDWorks LLC and Global OLED Technology LLC (GOT) have signed a royalty-bearing patent license agreement, which grants OLEDWorks the right to use certain GOT patents in connection with the production of OLED lighting-related products.

Michael Boroson, CTO of OLEDWorks, states, "We are very pleased to have access to this important patent portfolio. We believe that the technology developed at Kodak and now owned by GOT offers a superior approach for OLED lighting."

GOT continues to invest in, develop and license intellectual property that originated with Eastman Kodak Company. OLEDWorks LLC is a Rochester, NY-based company established in 2010 for the production of OLED lighting panels.

Samsung’s ITC complaint against Osram

The latest news from the LED patent dispute between Samsung and Osram concerns the complaint made by Samsung to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). Samsung claims that certain LED products manufactured by Osram and imported into the USA infringe one or more patents owned by Samsung.

Samsung sought to change the complaint to add both Siemens, Osram’s parent company, and Hella, a Germany-based automotive-lighting manufacturer, as respondents. However, the ITC rejected Samsung’s attempt to add these companies to the case.

Dominant and Osram

LEDs Magazine recently reported that a German court had ruled in favor of Osram in its patent-infringement lawsuit against Dominant, a Malaysian LED manufacturer.

However, according to Dominant’s press release on the same subject, the court rejected 10 of the claims made by Osram.

Dominant also says that the infringement confirmed by the court only relates “to product lines that have been terminated since 2004/2005 due to on-going improvements.”