South Korea’s light-emitting diode (LED) producer Seoul Semiconductor Co. said Wednesday it reached out-of-court settlement with U.S.-based retail giant Kmart Corp. ahead of the final ruling by a California court on its lawsuit on patent infringement.

Seoul Semiconductor in September last year filed a suit against in the U.S. retailer in the U.S. District Court in California, accusing it of selling LED products manufactured with its patented technologies.

It argued that some LED products sold at Kmart infringed on its eight patented core technologies including high color rendering index (CRI), phosphor combination, LED epi growth and chip fabrication, omni-directional light and acrich multi-junction technology.

Kmart recently agreed to stop selling these products by respecting Seoul Semiconductor’s patented technologies ahead of final verdict of the U.S. court, according to the Korean firm. The move raises hopes for other pending litigations.

Seoul Semiconductor has made similar complaint against Mouser Electronic Inc., German electronic components distributor.

Seoul Semiconductor also earlier sent warnings to manufacturers of LED filaments bulbs as well as other LED lighting products to stop any infringement of its proprietary technologies.

The Korean firm which started developing the technology in the early 2000s has established a strong IP portfolio around all the core technologies to manufacture filament LEDs. The patents include LED-related inventions by 2014 Nobel laureate in physics Shuji Nakamura and his colleague Steven Denbaars, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

By Seo Chan-dong

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