ANSAN, South Korea–Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (“Seoul”) announced that the U.S. Patent Trial Appeal Board (“PTAB”) has entered judgments of invalidity for all four (4) patents of Document Security Systems, Inc. (“DSS”), a patent troll. With these rulings, Seoul continues its undefeated winning record against patent trolls that abuse the patent system and file baseless litigation.
In 2017, DSS filed a patent infringement suit against Seoul in the U.S. Federal Court after purchasing LED patents from Intellectual Discovery, a Korean intellectual property management company Seoul immediately filed petitions for Inter-Partes Review against all three DSS patents with the PTAB. In 2019, PTAB ruled that all three patents are invalid.
Despite invalidation of all the asserted patents, DSS filed another patent lawsuit against Seoul in September 2019, again using a patent purchased from Intellectual Discovery. Immediately, Seoul filed a further Inter-Partes Review. The PTAB again found that all challenged claims of this LED patent were invalid. As a result, all asserted patents by DSS have been found invalid, resulting in a complete victory for Seoul.
| Event | Date | |
| Establishment | 2010. 7. | Intellectual Discovery, Korean Sovereign Patent Fund, was established. |
| Sales of Patents | 2016. 11. | Intellectual Discovery sold LED patents to DSS. |
| The 1st Patent Litigation | 2017. 5. | DSS filed the first patent litigation against Seoul alleging infringement of 3 patents in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. |
| Invalidation of Patent | 2019. 4-7. | PTAB ruled that all three DSS patents were invalid |
| The 2ndPatent Litigation | 2019. 9. | DSS filed the second patent litigation against Seoul alleging infringement of another patent in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. |
| Invalidation of Patent | 2021. 11.17. | PTAB ruled that another DSS patent was invalid as well. |
Since its establishment, Seoul has taken strong legal action against patent trolls and non-practicing entities who make groundless patent infringement claims in order to extort royalties. For those trolls who insist on bringing meritless claims, Seoul has filed actions to invalidate the patents of those patent trolls, and, to date, all of them have been invalidated.
“Business divisions that are dissolved or sold have many patents that have no inventive value. Patent trolls or latecomers often collect these to pretend that they have valuable assets,” said an official at Seoul. Seoul is committed to protecting its brand that it has worked so hard to establish.