Everlight Electronics Co (億光電子), the nation’s top LED chip packager, yesterday said a US Federal Court issued orders in favor of the company regarding a patent litigation with Nichia Corp of Japan.
The Taiwanese company filed a patent lawsuit against Nichia in April last year, accusing the Japanese firm of infringing on its US patent No. 6653215, which refers to technologies using metal electrodes in assembling LED products.
In a statement issued by the company, Everlight said the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan last month held a Markman hearing on claim construction, during which the Court adopted all of the company’s interpretations of patent claims for No. 6653215 while rejecting all of Nichia’s.
Everlight said it had also requested the US Federal Court to confirm that two of Nichia’s patents, No. 5998925 and No. 7531960, registered in the US were invalid, according to the statement.
Thus far, the US Federal Court has not yet ruled on the infringement case. It is scheduled to begin jury trial over the issue in June next year.
Meanwhile, Everlight said yesterday its products did not infringe Nichia’s patents, after the Japanese company on Thursday filed a lawsuit to the US Federal Court over another patent, No. 7432589.
The company said it planned to appeal a German case to a higher court after Germany’s Duesseldorf District Court earlier this month ruled Everlight’s products infringed Nichia’s patents.
The company made the remark after Nichia yesterday told a press conference in Taipei that Everlight had spread biased information regarding lawsuits between the two companies, according to online news site cnYES.
AFFIRMATIVE RULING
Nichia said Everlight had thus far received only one affirmative ruling, by the Japan Patent Office (JPO), out of 28 cases of patent litigations between Everlight and Nichia in Japan, China, Germany and Taiwan.
The JPO last month upheld its previous decision to invalidate all claims of Nichia’s blue LED patent.
‘PATENT WAR’
Nichia chief legal officer Katsuyuki Akutagawa said the company would act more aggressively in this “patent war” against Everlight, adding that Nichia had no intention to reconcile with the Taiwanese company.
According to Nichia, Everlight and Nichia are in 22 patent lawsuits in Japan, four cases in China, and one each in Germany and Taiwan. Courts have made rulings in 19 cases so far, Nichia said.
This story has been updated since it was first published.
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