On February 20, 2018, Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. reported the company has won the patent invalidity litigation action that its lawyers filed against Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd. in the United Kingdom. Everlight’s patent, EP (UK) 1169735, which the court invalidated because of Seoul’s motion, relates to an LED package design for thermal dissipation. In 2017, Everlight reportedly purchased this patent from a U.S. company. Then recently, Everlight filed a patent complaint based on a foreign counterpart of this heat disipation patent against its rival, Bridgelux, Inc., in a U.S. federal court.
Last year, Seoul filed an invalidation motion against this Everlight patent in the Patent Court of the UK. Seoul says that Everlight chose to abandon the defense of the patent after intensive proceedings in the UK court, and in court, Everlight acknowledged that its patent is invalid and that it is responsible for reimbursing Seoul for its litigation expenses.
Seoul’s Litigation Costs to be Paid
Based on this admission, on February 14, 2018, the UK Patent Court ordered that Everlight’s patent should be revoked and that Everlight must pay about $1 million dollars (£712,247.10) for Seoul’s litigation costs based upon Everlight’s stipulation.
Currently, Seoul is enforcing particular patent rights against a distributor of Everlight LED products. During the past year, Seoul initiated two patent infringement lawsuits in Germany against Mouser Electronics, a global distributor of Everlight LED products (Ref. April Coverage, and May Coverage). Also, Seoul recently filed new patent litigation against Mouser for selling allegedly infringing Everlight products in Italy (Ref. Coverage). Seoul says that following its latest enforcement action in Italy, Mouser has apparently removed all Everlight products from its distribution list of products worldwide.
