Technical Insight
Courts rule in patent cases (LED News)
Recent months have seen further developments in the various patent lawsuits relating to nitride-based LEDs. A number of cases are being fought in the US and Japan, with Nichia, Toyoda Gosei and Cree the chief protagonists. Nichia s Cree case thrown out The Tokyo District Court has dismissed the lawsuit filed in December 1999 by Nichia against Sumitomo Corporation, one of Cree s distributors in Japan (see Compound Semiconductor Jan/Feb 2000, p10). Nichia alleged that certain Cree blue LED products infringed Japanese patent number 2918139. Nichia had sought an injunction against the sale in Japan of Cree s standard brightness blue LED products, claiming that the LED device structure infringed the patent in question. In a decision handed down on May 15 in Tokyo, a three-member panel of judges found that the Cree products did not infringe the patent. Cree argued that its products employ a structure fundamentally different from the structure disclosed in the patent. "The Tokyo District Court s decision represents a significant victory for Cree," said Cree s chairman and CEO Neal Hunter. "We succeeded in defending our products in the case, and that success lends further support to our long-standing belief that Cree s SiC-based LEDs differ in significant ways from LEDs produced by our competitors." Nichia claims victory over Rohm Nichia is claiming to have won a victory over Rohm in the on-going war over InGaN LED patents. The battle (or perhaps skirmish) in question was an unusual complaint that Rohm had lodged with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging that Nichia was infringing on two of Rohm s US patents (see Compound Semiconductor February 2001, p8). The ITC has the power to block imports that might harm domestic US industries; this case was very unusual because neither of the parties to the complaint is an American company. In a strongly worded statement issued on May 15, Nichia claimed that Rohm had been forced to withdraw the complaint to stave off potentially embarrassing disclosures following the ITC s grant of a discovery motion to Nichia. "It is unheard of that an ITC investigation is abandoned midway through the process like this," said Mark Grant, Nichia s lead counsel. "Nichia believes they would have proven that Rohm fabricated a domestic industry to obtain ITC jurisdiction, and knowingly asserted invalid and unenforceable patents." Commenting on the outcome, Noboru Tazaki, managing director and general manager of Nichia s Optoelectronics Products Division, said "We believe the motion to withdraw removes any doubt that the ITC complaint was frivolous and that manufacturers in the US will have on-going access to Nichia s LEDs. This turn of events also eliminates concern over the availability of violet and blue laser diodes in the US, as Nichia is the world s only commercial supplier of these parts." Toyoda Gosei decision reversed The Tokyo High Court has reversed a previous decision that rendered one of Toyoda Gosei s patents invalid. Patent number 2737053 concerns the buffer layer structure of double heterostructure nitride-based LEDs with an undoped light-emitting layer. The patent, which could prove to be important in Toyoda Gosei s patent "war" against Nichia, was deemed invalid in October 1999.
