Patents - Page 7

In October 2012 we reported that Taiwan's AU Optronics is suing two former executives that allegedly stole technologies (including AMOLED related ones) from the company and supplied it China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT, a subsidiary of TCL).

Today we learned that those two executives were found guilty by the Hsinchu Court in northern Taiwan. Tsung-Yi Hsu, a former OLED R&D department manager at AUO was charged of leaking AMOLED manufacturing and Thin-Film Transistor (TFT) structure research findings to CSOT (where he was employed as the director of the R&D center). Hsu will be jailed six months and fined NT $180,000 (around $5,500 US). The prosecutors are still deciding whether Hsu can pay a fine instead of facing imprisonment.

The US PTO published a new patent application from Apple that describes an OLED display with a built-in fingerprint reader. The idea is that integrating Near Infrared (NIR) emitters and detectors between the OLED subpixels will enable a much thinner design compared to separate display and detector layers. This also means that there is no need to have a separate reader in the home button as in current iPhones.

The Fraunhofer Institute has demonstrated bi-directional OLED microdisplays back in 2012 that are based on a similar idea - embedding photo detectors (in the visible light range, in that case) within the OLED sub pixels. The latest prototype unveiled in 2015 supports SVGA resolution and a hi-res image sensor. The bi-directional displays are available for sampling.

OLED-Info, in collaboration with Global IP News, is offering a daily newsletter covering OLED patents news for some time now. The OLED Patent Newsletter provides patent information from more than 85 countries and can be a valuable tool in tracking the OLED patent scene and protecting your company's assets.

In addition to the daily email alert, we are happy to announce a new feature - you can now browse and view OLED patents from your desktop or mobile device, filter by company and country and also export the patent list to excel or PDF.

As a special feature-launch offer, if you subscribe by October 31 you will get a 25% discount - a yearly single-user subscription for only $300 (down from $400). We now also offer company-wide subscriptions - up to 10 subscribers for only $750.

In August 2011 Samsung signed a long-term license agreement with Universal Display. This agreement (which runs till 2017, and will probably be extended) included a license fee and allowed Samsung to acquire and use UDC's patented phosphorescent OLED materials.

In total, Samsung is set to pay (and already paid) UDC hundreds of million of dollars in royalties and materials. This got me wondering - why didn't Samsung acquire UDC back then, which would have given them a lock on the OLED market? Let's look at the numbers, but the answer is probably not related to the financials, really.

Earlier this year Philips announced its intention to spin-off its OLED activity, and the company started searching for a buyer for its whole OLED business activity. Today it was announced that US-based OLEDWorks will buy the key parts of Philips OLED lighting business.

Philips will establish a new legal entity and transfer key parts of its OLED business, including the production facility located in Aachen, Germany, and relevant IP. This new entity will then be sold to OLEDWorks, which will be granted a license by Philips to market its OLED light source components under the Philips brand. Philips will remain a distributor of the panels through its OEM sales channels.

Samsung filed a new patent application for an interested device - a smartphone that can be bent to become a bracelet. It uses a flexible OLED over interlocking segments which allow the whole device to fit on a person's wrist.

I'm not sure what constitutes a novel design here (after all such a segmented design is used in regular watches) - but it'll sure be nice to see such a device from Samsung in the future...

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%).

Samsung and LG agreed to stop the ongoing legal disputes between LG Display and Samsung Display - thus ending a very long court battle that involved technology theft accusation, stolen TVs and even broken washing machines. The two companies ended all current disputes, and agreed to not take new legal actions - and try and settle all issues through dialog.

In past years we've heard of several lawsuits launched by both sides and even accusations of stolen prototype TVs. In 2013 two two Korean arch-rival agreed to resolve their OLED dispute and they even considered cross-licensing patents and dropped all OLED lawsuits against each other, but settlement negotiation failed. Maybe this time they will finally make peace.

According to Korean site ETNews, Samsung Display decided to re-enter the OLED TV market. The Korean display maker reportedly finds it difficult to make a profit from the competitive LCD business (some reports suggest that SDC aims to split the OLED and LCD business soon).

Interestingly, the reports suggest that Samsung aims to use a WRGB architecture - like LG uses in their own OLED TVs, and unlike the direct-emission used in Samsung's small display and first-generation OLED TVs. The WRGB (white OLED with color filters and four sub pixels) was originally developed at Kodak, and then bought by LG back in 2009.

OLEDWorks and Universal Display signed an OLED technology license agreement. OLEDWorks was granted license rights to manufacture and sell phosphorescent OLED lighting products. OLEDWorks will pay UDC an upfront license fee and running royalties.

OLEDWorks, established in July 2010 by former Kodak OLED business experts, is a US-based OLED lighting maker (the only OLED lighting producer in the US). The company developed a proprietary low-cost production process. In 2013 the company successfully completed its Series A fund raising, and the company received three DoE grants (see here, here and here) to further develop is OLED technology.