Seoul Semiconductor Wins All Five Patent Litigations Filed against Everlight as a Result of Reversal Decision in Korea

ANSAN, South Korea (Dec. 27, 2018) – Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890) (“Seoul”), a leading global innovator of LED products and technology, announced that Seoul has won a patent invalidity litigation that was filed against Everlight Electronics in the Korean Patent Court, thereby continuing its string of successes in patent litigation.

Everlight’s patent involved in this litigation was one that it purchased from a U.S. company in 2017. Previously, Seoul also filed a patent invalidation litigation against this patent’s Europe (UK) counterpart in the U.K. Patent Court. Following the U.K. challenge, Everlight voluntarily acknowledged that its patent is invalid, and the U.K. Patent Court ordered Everlight to pay approximately $1 million dollars in litigation costs to Seoul.

Despite U.K. Court’s declaration of invalidation, the Korean Patent Trial Board initially dismissed Seoul’s invalidation challenge against Everlight’s patent. However, the Korean Patent Court reversed this initial decision and declared the challenged claims of Everlight’s patent to be invalid, consistent with the outcome of the U.K patent litigation. As a result, Seoul has won all of five patent litigations filed against Everlight.

Notably, several weeks ago, a German Court rendered a judgment in favor of Seoul’s patent infringement claims, including ordering a permanent injunction against sales of the accused Everlight products. The Court also ordered a recall of all accused Everlight products sold after July 13, 2012 from their distributor’s commercial customers.

“In order to ensure that the efforts and value of technology innovators are respected, we have visited numerous companies around the world to explain our technologies while concurrently monitoring suspected infringing products,” said Sam Ryu, Vice President of Seoul Semiconductor. “We hope that many founders and small businesses around the world will be able to advance their dreams with creative ideas next year.”

A List of Court Judgments that Rule in Favor Seoul against Everlight

Country Date Judgment
U.K. Feb. 14, 2018 Patent Court declared Everlight’s patent invalid and ordered Everlight to pay approximately $1 million dollars in litigation costs to Seoul.
Germany Dec. 7, 2018 Mannheim Court ruled in favor of Seoul and ordered Everlight to bear the statutory costs of the court proceeding.
Germany Dec. 10, 2018 Mannheim Court dismissed Everlight’s claim against a distributor of Seoul and ordered Everlight to bear the statutory costs of the court proceeding.
Germany Dec. 11, 2018 Düsseldorf Court issued a permanent injunction against sales of the accused Everlight products and ordered to recall the accused Everlight products sold after July 13, 2012 from its distributor’s commercial customers as a first instance decision.
South Korea Dec. 13, 2018 Patent Court declared the challenged claims of Everlight’s patent invalid.

 

About Seoul Semiconductor

Seoul Semiconductor develops and commercializes light emitting diodes (LEDs) for automotive, general illumination, specialty lighting, and backlighting markets. As the second-largest LED manufacturer globally excluding the captive market, Seoul Semiconductor holds more than 12,000 patents, offers a wide range of technologies, and mass produces innovative LED products such as SunLike – delivering the world’s best light quality in a next-generation LED enabling human-centric lighting optimized for circadian rhythms; WICOP – a simpler structured package-free LED which provides market leading color uniformity and cost savings at the fixture level, providing high lumen density and design flexibility; NanoDriver Series – the world’s smallest 24W DC LED drivers; Acrich, the world’s first high-voltage AC-driven LED technology developed in 2005, including all AC LED-related technologies from chip to module and circuit fabrication, and nPola, a new LED product based on GaN-substrate technology that achieves more than ten times the output of conventional LEDs. UCD constitutes a high color gamut display which delivers more than 90% NTSC. To learn more, visit www.seoulsemicon.com.