Toyoda rubbishes Columbia professor's patent claim
A patent infringement lawsuit concerning LED manufacturing brought by a Columbia University professor against Toyoda Gosei has been dismissed by the Japanese company.
Professor Gertrude Neumark filed the suit in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, citing Toyoda Gosei, its US subsidiary and two of its LED distributors.
However, Toyoda Gosei has rubbished the academic's claims, saying that the two patents in question are "based on a hypothetical logical formula and lack both novelty and inventiveness".
One of the patents that is the subject of the claim details a process for doping wide-bandgap semiconductors. Awarded in 1990, US patent 4,904,618 describes how crystals of ZnSe and ZnTe can be doped with nitrogen and lithium.
In it, Neumark says that ZnSe may be p-type doped using a lithium-rich melt and liquid-phase epitaxy, or by using ammonia gas.
The second patent "“ US number 5,252,499 "“ was awarded in 1993 and also concerns doping.
Toyoda says that back in 1999 it had discussed the patent claims with Neumark. But the LED manufacturer alleges that an agreement could not be reached because her demands were "beyond common sense".
Not only does Toyoda believe that it is not infringing the patents as it does not use any such method, it also regards the patents to be invalid, and lacking in what it calls patentability.
"Toyoda Gosei is confident that our LED products do not infringe the patents named in the lawsuit. It will take legal measures to reply to the complaint and intends to defend its position," concluded the company in a statement.
