Patents - Page 10

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.

A few days ago Samsung held their Analyst Day 2013 with a lot of fascinating information regarding the company's present business and its future plans. It was clear from Samsung Display's presentation that the company sees OLED as the leading future display technology and puts a great emphasis on flexible displays. They see flexible OLED penetration into the mobile display market reaching 40% by 2018 (up from 0.2% in 2013) - this is based on research by DisplaySearch.

In fact Samsung Electronics's CEO announced that the company aims to bring fully-foldable screens sometimes in 2015. In the same statement he mentioned that there is still plenty of room for improvement for the Galaxy Gear and it's likely that the company is already developing a wearable device with a flexible AMOLED display.

In May 2012, the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) issued a decision regarding Universal Display's patent #4511024 - they upheld the validity of certain claimed inventions but invalidated the broadest claims. Universal Display appealed to the Japanese High Court and now they announced that the court reversed the JPO's broad claims invalidation.

The matter was remanded back to the JPO for further consideration consistent with the IP High Court’s ruling. The company who initiated the lawsuit in June 2011 was Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL).

In past months, Samsung filed several patents regarding possible bendable and flexible displays and devices. Samsung says that in the future we'll see new functions and form factor display which will enable new device designs. Samsung's patents cover all sorts of designs, including bendable, foldable and rollable types:

Some of these designs are obvious and it seems unlikely to me that these can be patented now (although I'm not a patent lawyer and not an expert on patents at ll). For example, the third design in the patent image above has been suggested before by UDC years ago, in a render they made in 2006 or so (see below). Of course it may be that Samsung patents describe some more subtle innovation based on this design.

A few weeks ago we launched the OLED Patent Newsletter, and so far responses have been very positive. This is a subscription-based services that manually tracks OLED patents from around the world and is an essential tool if you're involved with OLED patents and IP. We have subscribers from both the academia and from enterprises.

Today our sister-site Graphene-Info launched a similar service to track graphene patents. Graphene is an amazing carbon-based materials that is set to revolutionize entire industries - from electronics to water desalination, genomics and aerospace. Graphene may enable new touch panels and even display backplanes and it's a topic that all display professionals should keep track on.

Graphene is just emerging and companies and universities are rushing to patent new production processes, new derived materials and of course possible applications - so this is the perfect time to monitor this fledgling industry. As with the OLED newsletter, we offer 2-weeks free trial and a 34% discount if you subscribe within one month from today.

Universal Display announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) issued a decision regarding the company's EU patent #1933395 (the EP '395 patent, which details the iridium L2MX composition), which was challenged by Sumitomo Chemical, Merck and BASF. The EPO affirmed the basic inventions and broad patent coverage but narrowed the scope of the original claims.

I'm not a lawyer so it is difficult for me to understand exactly what the narrowing of those claims mean. UDC says that they are pleased with the fact that the EPO recognized the novelty in the invention and confirmed their rights to broad claim coverage in this class of molecules through 2020. They are likely to appeal the ruling to reinstate a broader set of claims.

Three weeks ago we launched The OLED Patent Newsletter, a daily newsletter that provides OLED patents updates from over 85 patent offices worldwide. When we launched, we offered a special launch discount: $100 off the normal yearly subscription rate ($300). This discount is only valid until October 15th, so here's your last chance to enjoy this discount. If you haven't done so yet, contact us now to activate your free 2-week trial or order your subscription!

The OLED Patent newsletter at a glance:

• A daily subscription-based news service
• Provides patent applications, grants and expiration monitoring from over 85 patent countries (including the US, EU, China, Japan and Korea)
• This manually-edited service is brought to you by two trustworthy companies, leaders in their fields
• The best and easiest way to monitor global OLED patents!
• A valuable tool for academic researchers and OLED companies!

Samsung Display and LG Display announced they dropped all OLED lawsuits against each other in a reconciliatory gesture. The companies agreed to "put aside their differences" and look for ways to cooperate.

Samsung and LG's OLED technology feud was a long time standing and it's great to hear the two Korean giants agreed to resolve it and perhaps even cooperate. Back in February, LG and Samsung agreed to resolve their OLED dispute outside of the court of law and SDC's CEO even said the two companies are considering cross-licensing patents. Later on it was reported that the South Korean police searched the offices of Samsung Display as part of the investigation into alleged large-sized OLED TV technology theft from LG Display, but hopefully now this truce will hold.

In December 2012, LG's Global OLED Technology (GOT) filed a lawsuit against Eastman Kodak, claiming that 18 of Kodak's patent actually belong to GOT. Kodak said these aren't related to OLEDs and so were not part of the 2009 deal (when GOT bought about 2,200 OLED patents and patent applications from Kodak). GOT also wanted to recover royalty payments from Pioneer that were paid to Kodak and not GOT (he Pioneer license was supposed to have been transferred to GOT but apparently Kodak wasn't able to obtain consent for the transfer).

Today GOT reported that the US court ordered Kodak to assign ownership of 3 patents to GOT (US patents #6,717,560, #6,892,014 and #6,999,138). This was a settlement agreed to by GOT and Kodak. Kodak will also assign the Pioneer license agreement to GOT, including all rights to receive royalty payments from Pioneer under the license.

We're happy to announce a new service - launched in collaboration with Global IP News - The OLED Patent Newsletter. This daily 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 assets or keeping up to date on the latest OLED research globally.

The OLED Patent newsletter at a glance:

• A subscription-based news service (daily)
• Provides patent applications, grants and expiration monitoring from over 85 countries (including the US, EU, China, Japan and Korea)
• This manually-edited service is brought to you by two trustworthy companies, leaders in their fields
• The best and easiest way to monitor global OLED patents!
• A must-have tool for academic researchers and OLED companies!

Special launch offer!

• The OLED Patent newsletter costs $300 per year.
• If you subscribe until the 15th of October (one month from today), you will get the special launch price - only $200 for the first year! (yes, a 34% discount!)
• We also offer 2 weeks free trial.
• Contact us for details or read more here