One year ago, Seoul Semiconductor filed a patent infringement lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court asserting that Craig’s sales of LED backlighting unit products infringed five of Seoul’s patents. On July 23, 2015, the court finally issued the judgment in favor of Seoul Semiconductor stating that Craig acknowledged infringement of all the asserted patents and their validity.
Seoul Semiconductor’s asserted patents cover a wide range of technologies including, but not limited to, backlighting units, LED packaging, LED chips and epitaxial layers, and black hole lenses. Together, these patented technologies cover essential components and features of modern back lighting units, including manufacturing systems, LED displays, and optical devices. Particularly, Seoul Semiconductor’s patented technology for lenses having a curved shape at the center helps ensure uniform illumination across the entire area of the liquid crystal display for back lighting units, thereby substantially enhancing image quality on the LCD display.
“Seoul Semiconductor considers violations of its intellectual property rights to be a very serious matter,” said an official at the company. “To safeguard our licensees’ and customers’ interests in using Seoul Semiconductor’s patented technology, Seoul Semiconductor will continue to discover infringing LED application products in the market and maintains an enforcement program that will consider any and all enforcement options against third party infringers who do not respect Seoul Semiconductor’s intellectual property rights. Indeed, we are pursuing another patent infringement lawsuit against suspected infringers”
LED products are typical products routinely subject to patent litigations. Such enforcement actions are inevitable to promote a fair market, whether market participants value their competitor’s intellectual properties and invest in R&D for technology innovation rather than merely copy competitor’s valuable technology.
