Patents - Page 16

ICAP Patent Brokerage is organizing a Live IP Auction on November 16 and 17, and there will be two OLED patents on sale. The first patent is titled "Organic Light Emitting Devices (OLED) Materials", authored by Bhalchandra M. Karandikar (US patent #6,689,494). The patents offers using rigidized cyanines as emissive materials in an OLED assembly.

The second patent is titled "Touch Sensitive Organic Light Emitting Diode" and is authored by Lee Young Jong. This is a Korean patent (#KR 1007435450000) and it also includes a US patent application. This patent describes a touch sensing OLED.

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL) signed a license agreement with Global OLED Technology (GOT) - LG's company which acquired all of Kodak's OLED business in 2009. PIOL now has the right to use some of GOT's OLED lighting patents and will pay a running royalty fee. Idemistu Kosan owns 32% of GOT (the rest is owned by LG) and 49% of PIOL.

PEW OLED Lighting panels

PIOL started shipping OLED lighting panel samples last month. The company also signed a license agreement with UDC.

Update: Panasonic announced that they will start shipping OLED panels on September 1st, 2011.

Universal Display signed a technology license agreement with Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting (PIOL). PIOL will use UDC's OLED materials and technologies in its lighting products, and will pay running royalties on its sales (some of it prepaid) and may also purchase OLED materials. The agreement runs through July 2014.

PEW OLED Lighting panels

Panasonic Idemitsu OLED Lighting was established by Panasonic Electric Works (PEW) and Idemitsu Kosan in March 2011, with the aim of developing, manufacturing and marketing OLED lighting panels. The company combines PEW's design and manufacturing technologies with Idemitsu OLED materials. PEW was already using UDC's materials, and it's interesting to hear that the joint-venture will now use UDC materials as well and not just Idemitsu' materials. This validates the claim that efficient OLED lighting (above 40 lm/W or so) requires phosphorescent materials.

Universal Display and Samsung finally signed a long-term license agreement. Samsung will pay a fixed license fee (the amount was not disclosed, but we'll probably learn more soon) and will also purchase PHOLED materials from UDC - and this includes Green PHOLED as well (as we reported a while back Samsung will start using Green in their new 5.5-Gen fab). The current agreement will last till December 2017.

This is very good news for Universal Display (providing the financial agreement is sound of course) - as it validates the company's patents, which are facing challenges in several countries currently, including Korea.

Universal Display announced record revenue of $11.3 million (a 33% increase compared to Q2 2010). Commercial revenue was $5.3 million - a 170% increase over last year - mostly due to Samsung AMOLED capacity expansion. Operating loss was $1.1 million (down from $1.9 million). When taking stock warrant liability into account, net income was $3.2 million. The company is operation-cash positive ($223,000 in the quarter), and has about $326 million in cash or short-term investments.

During the conference call, the company gave some interesting updates. They say that no-one is currently using their green PHOLED material in commercial product. But they say that about half of their development revenues were from the sales of green-emitter and host materials (and over 10 customers are evaluating green). Our (trusted) source said that Samsung are using green in their 5.5-Gen fab - perhaps UDC cannot say it's commercial until they sign a new license agreement with Samsung that includes green. Or perhaps our source was wrong.

Apple filed a new patent for a glasses-free 3D device that uses multiple transparent display layers. The different layers would actually allow for visual depth to be seen by the users.

Apple's patent specifically mentions OLED panels as the technology used to make the transparent displays: "The use of OLED panels may provide an advantage over traditional display devices, since OLED panels do not require a backlight to function, and may therefore be much thinner and lighter than backlit display panels. OLED panels are further capable of displaying deep black levels and can naturally achieve a high contrast ratio."

Universal Display and LG Display have renewed their commercial supply agreement - till the end of 2011. The companies are still negotiating a long-term agreement. UDC also extended their license with Samsung a few days ago.

The original agreement between UDC and LG Display (LG.Philips back then) was signed on May 2007. LG is using UDC's PHOLED materials in AMOLED displays, and pay them license fees.

Universal Display and Samsung announced another extension (till September 30, 2011) to their license agreement (that was announced back in 2005). Samsung will continue to use UDC's PHOLED materials in their AMOLED products, all the terms of the agreement will remain the same.

This is the fifth three-months extension between SMD and UDC - the companies still can't seem to negotiate a new agreement...

AUO filed a lawsuit against Samsung and three of its customers over LCD and OLED patents. AUO claims that Samsung's various LCD and OLED products, including LCD devices used in TV, monitors, notebooks and OLED devices used in mobile phones, infringe AUO's patented technologies. This lawsuit is a retaliatory action against Samsung's own lawsuit against AUO over LCD patents filed earlier this month.

Interestingly, in January 2006 the two companies signed a broad patent cross-license agreement - that covers patents in the area of TFT-LCD and OLED.

The Korea Times reported that another Univeral Display patent was invalidated in Japan (bringing the total patents to three) - and that these patents are also being challenged in Korea (by Duksan) and in Europe. This caused UDC's stock to plummet. We knew about 2 patents back in March.

Steven Abramson, UDC's CEO responded to this in a technology investor conference. The company says that indeed Japan's court invalidated three of their patents. The basic PHOLED patent is still valid until 2018 in Japan, and this does not harm their entire portfolio. They will appeal to the Japanese high court, and in any case this only relates to products being made, used and sold in Japan - so it doesn't really pose a problem to the company.