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Nichia not keen on Nakamura settlement

Nichia’s president is reported as saying that the company is not considering an out-of-court settlement with Shuji Nakamura over GaN LED patents.

Eiji Ogawa, president of GaN-based LED and laser manufacturer Nichia, has said that the company will not consider an out-of-court settlement with Shuji Nakamura.

That’s according to a report in the Japanese business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

Nichia and Nakamura have been embroiled in a row over intellectual property since shortly after Nakamura left the company in 1999.

The researcher, who is now at the University of Santa Barbara, CA, filed a lawsuit against his former employer in August 2001, but lost his original claim that he owned a disputed patent (patent “404”) relating to a two-flow MOCVD technique.

However, a Japanese court ruling in February this year awarded Nakamura almost $200 million in compensation for his work. Nichia has appealed that decision.

This ruling was based on the judge’s interpretation of Nichia’s potential profits from blue LEDs up until 2010, which were estimated at ¥120 billion. However, Ogawa believes that such a prediction is impossible while Nichia is unable to precisely predict of LEDs even for this year.

In an interview, Ogawa reportedly said that Nichia is not even using patent 404 in LED production.

Ogawa added that the Nichia will argue in its appeal that the scope of the disputed patent was interpreted too broadly in the district court ruling.

In response to Nakamura’s comment that he was referred to as a “slave” while working at Nichia, Ogawa claimed that Nichia paid Nakamura an annual wage of nearly ¥20 million at the time Nakamura left the company.

Nichia’s pre-tax profit in fiscal year 2003 was ¥95 billion - almost double that in the previous year. LED sales account for approximately 80% of the company’s revenue.

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