According to the Korea Times, LG Display is in talks to acquire Global OLED Technology (GOT), the IP holdings company that owns over 2,000 OLED related patents originally created by Kodak. GOT was formed in 2009 following LG's $100 million purchase of Kodak's OLED business unit.
LG Display already acquired the GOT shares owned by LG Electronics - which gave a value of $156 million to GOT. LGD now owns 65% of GOT, with the rest being owned by Idemitsu Kosan (33%) and LG Chem (2%).
One of the patents held by GOT is the WRGB (WOLED+CF) architecture patent. LGD uses WRGB in their OLED TV panels, and a few days ago it was reported in Korea that Samsung Display is also thinking about adopting WRGB in their own OLED TV panels. GOT has license agreements with several companies, including LGD, eMagin, OLEDWorks, PIOL (no longer in business) and others.
Comments
Since LG recently signed a long-term agreement with Universal Display, I'm wondering why they are interested in acquiring GOT. Do UDC and GOT provide different technologies/services to LG? Would this potential acquisition hurt the UDC-LG relationship in any way?
That's not good.
Monopoly is not good for the comnumer in any way.
Hope other companies develop something similar without infringing "LG's" patents.