According to reports from foreign media, the transaction amount is expected to exceed $ 200 million.
News media quoted insiders, Samsung and Novaled will reach an agreement within this week, Gerd Guenther, Chief Marketing Officer of Novaled, also confirmed the ongoing bilateral negotiation. It is learned that Novaled has been mainly engaged in research and development of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology, as early as September of 2011, Novaled obtained an equity investment from Samsung's investment institution, and later Novaled had submitted IPO application to the United States, but it ultimately never came to anything.
In this regard, market analysts pointed out that Samsung intends to solve a series of recent OLED patent disputes through this acquisition. In the second half of 2012, LG accused Samsung of OLED patent infringement, while Samsung applied to the court for determination that LG's seven patents are invalid. If Samsung successfully purchases Novaled ultimately, then all OLED patents of Novaled will belong to Samsung, which will undoubtedly increase the likelihood for Samsung in the OLED patent war with LG.
It is reported that as early as in 2011, Samsung suspected that its 11 employees leaked details of OLED technology to LG Display and sued the employees. Later, both the two companies have submitted application to the court and requested to release ban on each other's related product. The battle between these two companies has appeared to be easing under the conciliation of South Korean government, but in March of this year, LG filed a lawsuit to the courts again to accuse Samsung of unlawful use of its OLED technology patents, and claimed compensation.
