The patent involved in this litigation relates to an LED package structure for thermal dissipation. Everlight purchased this patent from a U.S. company in 2017, and subsequently brought a patent lawsuit against Seoul in the Manheim Court of Germany.

In December 2018, however, the Manheim Court ruled in favor of Seoul and ordered that Everlight, as the losing party, should bear the statutory costs of the court proceeding.

In the United Kingdom, Seoul had already won a patent litigation against Everlight earlier this year. At that time, the UK Patent Court also ordered that Everlight must pay approximately one million dollars in litigation costs to Seoul. In the meantime, Seoul is pursuing patent infringement lawsuits against a global distributor of Everlight’s high-power and mid-power LED products in Germany, Italy and Japan.

Everlight has previously sued another of its competitors in Japan after purchasing a patent from a foreign company, but it lost that action as well. In April 2017, Everlight filed a patent lawsuit against Nichia Corporation and Citizen Electronics in Japan, relying on the purchased-patent. However, the Tokyo District Court dismissed Everlight’s lawsuit in October 2018.

“Seoul has invested approximately 100 billion won per year in research and development to ensure that it creates its own cutting-edge technology and products, thereby establishing its own formidable patent portfolio,” said Nam Ki-bum, Executive Vice President of the Lighting Department at Seoul. “We hope that our commitment and success for technology innovation would inspire young entrepreneurs and small businesses.”