Universal Display announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) revoked one of the company's basic phosphorescent OLED patents, EPO #1449238. The opposing parties included Sumitomo Chemical, Merck and BASF. This is one of more than 60 patents issued worldwide that cover four early fundamental phosphorescent OLED inventions developed at Princeton University and the University of Southern California.

UDC's CEO, Steven Abramson, said that they believe the EPO's decision is erroneous and they may file a petition to review the matter. In addition, UDC has a pending divisional EP patent application in which it intends to pursue substantial patent coverage that is similar to that provided in related patents that have previously been issued in the other jurisdictions. In any case, the company believes that any one decision in any one jurisdiction will not have a material effect on their business.

China's BOE Display has been discussing its 5.5-Gen LTPS fab in Ordos for a long time. Today BOE announced that it finally approves the AMOLED line in that fab, and will begin construction soon in a 22 billion yuan investment ($3.6 billion). The fab's capacity will be 54,000 glass substrates a month and will produce small and medium sized panels.

BOE Ordos 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab

According to earlier reports, the fab will begin producing LTPS LCDs soon (by the end of 2013). It's not clear whether the AMOLED line is a new line or whether BOE will convert one of the LCD lines to AMOLED. It is expected that BOE will only start mass producing AMOLEDs by the end of 2014. BOE's AMOLED fab will use high-resolution FMM deposition and a WRGB architecture. We know that BOE is also developing ink-jet printing technology but this will most likely take more time to commercialize.

Kateeva is a US based startup that was established in 2009 to develop OLED ink-jet deposition technology originally developed at MIT. The company has been been in stealth-mode for years, and now finally they have unveiled their technology and system, branded YIELDJet.

So YIELDJET is an inkjet printing system that can be used to produce OLEDs in high volume. Kateeva claims that their system, the first one engineered from the ground up for OLED mass production, will dramatically improve yields and drive production costs lower. Kateeva says that this was achieved by three major technical breakthroughs: is features a production-worthy pure nitrogen process chamber, which doubles the lifetime in certain applications, it reduces particles by as much as 10X thanks to a specialized mechanical design and it offers exceptional film coating uniformity with a process window that’s 5X wider than standard technologies.

Korea's UBI Research posted an article comparing the picture quality of Samsung's and LG's curved OLED TVs. Overall it seems that UBI prefers LG's OLED TV as it offers better black levels and can better express the original image.

UBI says that Samsung's TV offers excellent sharpness while LG's TV has better contrast (black levels). Samsung's TV suffers from low picture quality though due to excessive gamma correction to improve brightness. As I said before, UBI says that LG's TV is better able to express the original image. Regarding viewing angles, Samsung's has excellent angles for white while LG's TV has better viewing angles for red and blue.

New York Stat's Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) announced $4.8 million worth of grants for technologies that can enable more energy efficient buildings. There are 3 OLED related projects that were awarded $800,000 altogether.

OLEDWorks received $491,000 to improve the capability and control of its OLED manufacturing processes in order to manufacturing robust products at affordable cost. This is OLEDWorks' second grant from NYSERDA - in June the company was awarded $200,000 (in collaboration with WAC Lighting) to develop lighting for office space, combining LED indirect ambient device with an OLED "task unit".

OLED is a unique lighting technology - it enables flat, diffused planar lighting panels. These panels are different to the point (or line) sources we're used to - incandescent, fluorescent, CFLs and LEDs. But you can also use LEDs to build planar lighting panels. Several companies are offering such solutions called edge-lit panels.

Israel's OREE developed proprietary technology that enables them to offer panels which are so thin that they are quite similar to OLED panels in form (almost... more on this below), yet are efficient, very bright and a lot cheaper than current OLEDs. They were kind enough to invite me to their offices for a visit and also sent me a couple of samples for a review.

According to Reuters, Samsung says they have shipped over 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches since September. This numbers are probably shipment to retailers and not actual sales. In addition, most Gear watches are sold bundled to Galaxy Note 3 phones (some operators offer them free of charge if you join a certain plan). In any case, Samsung believes the Gear is now the "most sold wearable watch available in the marketplace".

According to Business Korea, Samsung sold less than 50,000 Gear watches in Korea which is far below their initial industry expectations. The Galaxy Gear, Samsung's first smartwatch, features a 1.63" 320x320 (275 PPI) Super AMOLED display, a 1.9 mp camera (720p videos), 800Mhz processor, 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth 4, and a 315 mAh non-removeable battery.

I'm happy to announce my new book that I released today, The Graphene Handbook. Graphene is an exciting 2D carbon material - it is the world's strongest and most conductive material, and it's also transparent and flexible. Graphene may play an important role in the display industry, and it is also useful to make medical devices, electronics, spintronics, sensors, and more.

While graphene is exciting, there are many challenges still. The Graphene Handbook takes a look at the technology, industry and current market for graphene materials. It's a great way to be introduced to the material of the future. It took me about a year to write this book, and I hope it is the best introduction to graphene you can read today!

Reading this book, you'll learn all about:

• The properties of graphene
• Different production methods
• Possible graphene applications
• The latest graphene research
• The current market for graphene materials and products
• The main graphene challenges
• Other promising 2D materials

The book also provides:

• A history of graphene developments
• A graphene investment guide
• A comprehensive list of graphene companies
• A guide to other carbon allotropes

The Graphene Handbook costs $97 for the digital (PDF) edition or $149.99 for the printed edition. We also offer site and enterprise licenses, and academic discounts. If you're interested, click here for more information (including a table of contents).

LG's G Flex phone is now shipping in Korea, and besides the flexible curved OLED display, it also uses a curved battery, developed and produced by LG Chem. The non-removable battery's capacity is 3500mAh. Here's a photo that shows the new battery next to a regular LG mobile phone battery:

LG Chem developed (and patented) a technology which they call Stack & Folding which reduces physical stress when realizing the curved design of battery packs. LG Chem started producing curved batteries this month .

Here's your chance to get LG's curved OLED TV for free - reviewed.com is giving away one LG EA9800 for a lucky winner in a new draw. You just need to enter your e-mail address by December 15. The contest is open to US residents only.

If you're actually considering buying this TV, you'd be pleased to know that Amazon currently offers a $500 BuyDig.com gift card in a pre-black-friday special. The price is still $8,999.