Epistar ramps new chips to avoid Lumileds' ITC action
Epistar says its new Phoenix and Aquarius product lines will bypass the US International Trade Commission s ban on its LEDs, just as Philips Lumileds begins enforcement.
The companies ongoing patent dispute over AlGaInP chips seemed to be entering its final phases as the window in which the US President could have overturned the ITC s May ruling closed.
Customers using Epistar s optical mirror adhesion, glue-bond and metal-bond LEDs were informed on July 12 by Lumileds that they could be held responsible for infringing patent rights.
Lumileds instead offered products from its own lines, and those of distributors holding licenses to its patents.
The following day, Epistar introduced its new Phoenix and Aquarius AlGaInP LEDs, which are specifically designed to circumvent the ITC s Limited Exclusion Order.
“In light of the ITC s ruling, we accelerated our development program and are now manufacturing Phoenix and Aquarius in volume,” said Epistar president B.J. Lee.
“Those products remove entirely the feature that Lumileds claims is the basis for its patent, and also provide significantly improved performance over the previous designs.”
Although the Taiwanese LED maker has worked hard to bring these product lines to market and get them qualified by its customers, including those in the US, it faces further challenges before it is clear of the legal minefield.
One challenge is convincing US customs that the new products are not subject to the ITC ruling, although Epistar says it “expects a favorable determination shortly”.
Another comes in the form of the remaining legal disputes which Epistar faces. Lumileds is seeking damages for Epistar s infringement of its 718 patent, while Epistar is appealing the ITC decision, and is again confident of a ruling in its favor.
The new products may come as a surprise to Lumileds, whose customer notification was skeptical about Epistar s capacity to move beyond the technology used in the infringing LEDs, although a spokesman for Epistar said that the aim of this statement was to mislead.
“During the ITC investigation Epistar was required to disclose all of its currently available AlGaInP LED products and its “next generation” products, and these were all found to infringe the 718 patent,” Lumileds statement said.
“Given the broad scope and critical importance of the of the 718 patent to the making of a commercially viable AlInGaP LED, Philips Lumileds does not believe that Epistar will be able to suddenly devise a non-infringing alternative after having been unable to do so for the past decade.”
However, Epistar is clear in stating that the 718 only covers the next generation of mirror adhesion, glue-bond and metal-bond chips - not its patent-busting Aquarius and Phoenix LEDs.
