South Korea’s light-emitting diode (LED) maker Seoul Semiconductor Co. added another feat in its defense on patented rights against multinationals, defeating Dutch home appliance maker Philips in all three court battles.

Seoul Semiconductor said Tuesday that the company won an injunction order from a regional court in Dusseldorf, Germany against the sales of LED bulbs manufactured by Philips’ subsidiary Klite Lighting and distributed by Leuchtstark Vertriebs GmbH. The court also ordered the products sold from October 2017 to be recalled and destroyed.

With the precedence of recall and destruction order, it has become a must for companies who want to use the second-generation LED technology to sign a license contract with Seoul Semiconductor, except for Japan’s Nichia and Nitride Semiconductor, said Lee Chung-hoon and Lee Young-joo, Seoul Semiconductor CEOs.

Nichia and Nitride Semiconductor have already had a patent license relationship with the Korean LED major.

Seoul Semiconductor defeated Philips in all of the recent three patent battle including injunction orders against Philips LED TV sold at Fry’s Electronics in October last year and Philips TV signage last month in the U.S.

The filament LED products equipped with Philips TVs were the invention of a research team led by Shuji Nakamura, a professor at University of California who won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Seoul Semiconductor has sponsored the research and development since 2004.

Seoul Semiconductor is leading the global LED industry with more than 14,000 patented technologies. “Patents are must-haves in this artificial intelligence era, just as Amazon has a patent to a system that delivers products to customers before they place on order based on customer behavior analysis,” the company CEO Lee Chung-hoon emphasized.

On Wednesday, shares of Kosdaq-listed Seoul Semiconductor fell 3.72 percent to close at 19,400 won ($16.92).

By Ahn Byung-joon and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]