News Article
Everlight fights back against Nichia in LED combat
The firm is retaliating against Nichia's recent claims by filing a lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court; Everlight is seeking damages and demands that Nichia stops spreading false allegations.
After Everlight won a victory over Nichia for the patent administrative litigation (Patent No. 089036) in the Taiwan Supreme Administrative Court in October 2011, the Taiwan Supreme Court this November ruled in favour of Everlight again in the civil infringement case on Nichia’s patent in issue.
Everlight says this finalises all cases regarding this patent and that since Nichia has affected fair competitive market mechanisms by filing patent infringement lawsuits and announcing press releases, Everlight decided to fight back.
On 1st December 2011, Everlight brought a new lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court demanding that Nichia stops spreading false allegations and is seeking an award for damages.
In 2006, Nichia brought the patent infringement lawsuit against Everlight in Taiwan and sought damages of TWD 80 million (US $ 2.65 million). Everlight fought back aggressively by invalidating Nichia’s patent in issue in the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) the same year. Last July the Intellectual Property Court held in the civil lawsuit that the patent is invalid and that there are no legal grounds for the claim of TWD 80 million in damages.
In March 2011 the IP Court in the administrative procedure further ordered the TIPO to revoke Nichia’s patent in issue. Nichia appealed, yet in October the Taiwan Supreme Administrative Court affirmed the IP Court’s decision, upholding that Nichia’s patent is invalid and granting victory to Everlight. Soon after this, in November the Taiwan Supreme Court dismissed Nichia’s appeal in the civil infringement lawsuit, and Everlight won final victory over Nichia in both administrative and civil actions.
Everlight has since brought an unfair competition lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court (on 1st Dec 2011) and sought an order compelling Nichia to stop issuing press releases alleging baseless patent infringements in an attempt to affect Everlight’s goodwill.
Nichia have repeatedly proclaimed that LED manufacturers and distributors should respect its patent rights, and according to Everlight, Nichia says on its website that Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese manufacturers’ recent behaviour of disregarding patent rights in the Japanese market has grown "intolerable".
However, Everlight says that the validity of the patents Nichia used to claim infringement over Everlight’s products is questionable. As such, the firm decided, after many years of litigation against Nichia, to strike back to fully protect the interests of its customers and shareholders and to continue to bring patent invalidation lawsuits against Nichia in multiple countries.
Through the endeavours of the whole LED industry all over the world, LED technology has become the most energy-efficient, environmental-friendly, and health-oriented products now, and LED makers can manufacture and sell a range of LED products through fair market mechanisms.
Everlight says it consistently takes intellectual property rights seriously and has reached several mutually beneficial cross-license and patent license agreements with other companies in the industry. However, the firm says that when facing unfair competition, it will strike back when appropriate and take strong moves to protect the interests of its customers and clients.
