News: LEDs
14 September 2022
Seoul Semiconductor alleges infringement of 12 LED patents by Feit
South Korean LED maker Seoul Semiconductor Co Ltd has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against the USA’s largest light bulb maker Feit Electronic, asserting that Feit lighting products infringe 12 LED patents, and seeking a permanent injunction against the sales of those products.
Previously, in the Eastern District of Texas in 2019 and the Central District of California in 2020, Seoul Semiconductor secured permanent injunctions against several retailers selling Feit products.
However, the distribution of suspected infringing products has continued. For that reason, in 2022 Seoul filed a patent infringement lawsuit against a Feit distributor Ace Hardware, as well as a patent infringement lawsuit directly against Feit, to cut off the distribution of products believed to be infringing Seoul’s patents.
Seoul notes that it has a history of continually pursuing companies that infringe its patents. Based on Seoul’s enforcement, in 2018-2019 the German District Court of Düsseldorf ordered multiple permanent injunctions and a recall of LED products made by Taiwanese LED package maker Everlight Electronics (the world’s eighth largest LED maker). In June, Suwon District Court in Korea found Everlight guilty of criminal misappropriation of Seoul’s trade secrets and industry technology, awarding the maximum criminal fines.
Seoul also prevailed in six-year litigation against Enplas Corp, the largest backlight unit (BLU) lens maker, when the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Enplas willfully infringed Seoul’s LED patent, and the US Supreme Court affirmed Seoul’s victory in 2019. Civil damages by Enplas are still pending in another litigation.
Everlight convicted in Korea for misappropriating Seoul Semi’s trade secrets
