Seoul Semiconductor Expands Its European Enforcement and Files Patent Suit against European Distributor of MEGAMAN Lighting Products

Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890), a leading global innovator of LED products and technology, announced that it filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Germany in the District Court of Düsseldorf against Leuchtstark Vertriebs GmbH, a European LED lighting distributor, asserting infringement of Seoul’s LED patents. Seoul is currently investigating Leuchstark’s OEM/ODM manufacturers as well as other distributors.

In its complaint, Seoul asserts that this distributor is selling a “MEGAMAN” brand lighting product that infringes Seoul’s two LED patents. “MEGAMAN” is an Asian-based LED lamp brand.

The asserted patents relate to one of Seoul’s LED light extraction patent portfolios. In December 2018, Seoul successfully enforced a patent in the field of LED light extraction technology, and the District Court of Düsseldorf ordered an injunction against sales of the accused Everlight products as well as a recall of any such products sold after July 13, 2012.

Seoul holds rights to more than 14,000 LED patents, and has notified 90 companies regarding TV, cell phone, lighting, and automobile of patent infringements in the past year. Seoul has successfully enforced 62 patents in 8 countries in the past 5 years, and consider it almost impracticable to manufacture LED products without utilizing Seoul’s patented technology.

Technology		Number of Patents Asserted in litigation
LED epitaxial layers growth		8
LED Chip structure and fabrication		26
LED Package/Module/Bulb		14
LED Optics (Direct type lens)		7
LED Driver		5
Color Quality		2
TOTAL		62
* Number of patens that Seoul has asserted in the past 5 years’ in litigation

“Respecting intellectual property is essential to establish a fair competition business culture. We will take all necessary legal actions against companies that have suspicions of infringing our patents or of unlawful access to our trade secret by luring employees, as we have done against Everlight,” said Nam Ki-bum, Executive Vice President of the Lighting Department at Seoul Semiconductor.

About Seoul Semiconductor

Seoul Semiconductor develops and commercializes LEDs for automotive, general illumination, specialty lighting, and backlighting markets. As the second-largest LED manufacturer globally excluding the captive market, Seoul Semiconductor holds more than 14,000 patents, offers a wide range of technologies, and mass produces innovative LED products such as SunLike – delivering the world’s best light quality in a next-generation LED enabling human-centric lighting optimized for circadian rhythms; WICOP – a simpler structured package-free LED which provides market leading color uniformity and cost savings at the fixture level, providing high lumen density and design flexibility; NanoDriver Series – the world’s smallest 24W DC LED drivers; Acrich, the world's first high-voltage AC-driven LED technology developed in 2005, including all AC LED-related technologies from chip to module and circuit fabrication, and nPola, a new LED product based on GaN-substrate technology that achieves more than ten times the output of conventional LEDs. UCD constitutes a high color gamut display which delivers more than 90% NTSC. For more information, please visit www.seoulsemicon.com/en.

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Contact information

Seoul Semiconductor Inc.
Jeonghee Kim
Tel: +82-70-4391-8311
Email: jeonghee.kim@seoulsemicon.com