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Solas OLED hammers out deal on patent disputes

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) specialist Solas has finalised a confidential settlement and licence agreement with LG Display Co, resolving a number of patent infringement actions.

Last November, the Irish firm won a judgment in Germany over patent infringement of a control circuit for light-emitting diodes, used by Sony Corporation, among others, in flat-screen televisions.

Solas is an Irish OLED technology licensing company based in Dublin. Established in 2016, Solas has assembled one of the world’s largest OLED patent portfolios, with technology central to the design, circuitry and manufacturing of OLED displays.

While the terms of the licensing agreement are confidential, it brings to an end the respective patent litigation between Solas and LG, including counter-actions, concerning Solas’ OLED technology in Germany, China and the United States.

Portfolio

General counsel Aoife Butler commented: “We are very pleased that LG Display has taken a licence to the Solas patent portfolio.

“The patent licence not only frees up the OLED TV marketplace for LG Display, but also for the customers of its OLED panels, including Sony and Panasonic.

“It does not, however, include Samsung, which continues to market infringing OLED products, including tablets, watches and phones.

“In addition to a recently instituted action brought in the United States International Trade Commission against Samsung and BOE, Solas is now focused on the upcoming patent infringement action scheduled for trial against Samsung to begin on 1 March, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

True innovators

“The licensing of the Solas patent portfolio means that the true innovators, which includes in this case scientists at Stuttgart University, are recognised for their ingenuity and the University is participating in the great success of the protected technology so that it can continue to create and develop exciting new technologies.”