On March 26, 2019, a ruling of the District Court of Düsseldorf, Germany, (docket number 4a O 72/17) found that white LED used as flashlights in certain smartphones manufactured by HTC Corporation infringed Nichia’s YAG patent EP 0 936 682 (DE 697 02 929). The decision was also rendered against HTC’s affiliates HTC Europe and HTC Germany as well as against Digital River Ireland, which operates HTC’s European web shop. Nichia is awarded damages as compensation for the patent infringement for the period from June 30, 2007 until ...

Since Mini LED began its commercialized applications in the second half of 2018, the market of Mini LED backlight continues to expand. It is said that Apple will also start to adopt Mini LED backlight for iMac and iPad. Apple was said to release a 31.6-inch iMac with Mini LED back light in 2H19, a 10- to 12- inch iPad in 4Q20 or 1Q21 and a 15- to 17- inch Macbook in 1H21. With features of wide color gamut, high contrast ratio, high dynamic range, local dimming and long lifespan, Mini LED backlight would be a better option for devices such as monitors, tab...

The 14th Auto Lamp Industry Development Forum and the 5th Shanghai International Auto Lamp Exhibition (ALE) was held in Shanghai Automobile Exhibition Center on March 21, 2019. More tha...

Taiwanese LED producer Everlight announced that the Federal Court of Australia has denied Nichia’s appeal request and decided that the asserted claims of Nichia’s Australia patent 720234 are invalid on January 29, 2019. The Court has affirmed that Everlight’s products of Arrow are non-infringements. According to the judgement of the Court, Nichia has been ordered to pay legal cost to Arrow. Apart from the patent infringement filed in Australia, Everlight has filed invalidation trial procedures against Nichia ‘s YAG patents in Unit...

Photonics West 2019 is the largest photonics exhibition in the world with the most centralized visitors. As an international photonics industry event, Photonics West is annually held in San Francisco. During the show, deep UV LED, with its advantages of environmental friendly, long-lifetime, energy-saving, less heat loss and more, has attracted attention of visitors. The market of deep UV LED continues to expand as its product reliability and application demand increased. Nichia exhibited industrial laser and UV LED products at the show. The company’s ind...

Japanese LED maker Nichia Corporation announced the expansion of its Optisolis™ natural light source technology with a portfolio of COB packages. (Image: Nichia) To further improve the overall quality of light as "AKARI”, Nichia has developed Optisolis. Launched in February 2018 with a Nichia Mid Power LED series, Optisolis provides a natural light source with a spectrum that achieves the industry’s closest match to that of the standard illuminant, including both the sun and incandescent. Optisolis, which was first presented to the i...

Japanese LED maker Nichia announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against Corlant, a distributor of automotive aftermarket parts under the brand of Valenti on January 7th, 2019. Nichia request an injunction and compensation for the damages caused by the patent infringement. Nichia accused Corlant of distributing an automotive LED position lamp which Nichia believes infringes its patents JP5800452 and JP6320582 in relation to PSS technology*. Nichia seeks to protect its patents and other intellectual property right...

Nichia and Seoul Semiconductor, the two LED manufacturers in Japan and South Korea, have respectively reported updates regarding their intellectual property issues with the Taiwan-based company, Everlight. Nichia has confirmed its YAG patent in Germany as Everlight and its German subsidiary WOFI have withdrawn their appeal in November. The Japanese company then requested Everlight and WOFI to provide the rendering account information for related white LED products. Nichia is going to request compensation for the patent infringement from Everlight based o...

Nichia released a new COB LED series featuring tunable color. With the new color tunable LEDs, color temperatures could be adjusted according to natural biological rhythms for human centric lighting applications. On existing tunable light fixtures, the method to select and balance color temperatures is to mount multiple LED packages onto one board. This approach provides flexibility in the design but increases the complexity to properly mix the color of each LED. Moreover, it is difficult to develop color tunable fixtures with narrow beam patterns and harmonized color....

Nichia has announced that WOFI (Leuchten Wortmann & Filz), Everlight’s German subsidiary has withdrawn its appeal against the judgment of the Düsseldorf District Court concerning the YAG patent EP 936 682 (DE 697 02 929) of Nichia.

Japanese LED manufacturer Nichia Corporation has announced to start cooperative researches and experiments with Qwestland International, a Dutch horticulture solution provider. The goal of their partnership is to further explore the potential of the horticulture LED market.

In response to Nichia’s announcement of the final result of the patent lawsuit in Germany, Everlight reported that Nichia’s patent in Europe has expired in 2017 and that the result does not affect Everlight’s current products.

The patent lawsuit between Japanese LED producer Nichia and Taiwanese LED manufacturer Everlight in Germany has finalized on October 1, 2018.

Nichia reported a new update of its patent lawsuit with Everlight, the Taiwanese package company. 

Taiwanese LED package company Everlight and Japanese LED producer Nichia have continued their dispute regarding the patent of YAG. On October 1st 2018, the Supreme Court of the United State has confirmed the invalidity of Nichia’s assertions about its YAG patents.

Four Japanese companies, Nichia, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), Citizen and National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), reported that they have been granted in the U.S. the patent (U.S. patent No. 10,072,207) to LEDs using a nitride-type red phosphor*.

Japanese LED giant Nichia Corporation (Nichia) is to introduce the new 585 series of mid power LEDs, including the NF2W585AR and the NF3W585AR. With high flux output at approximately 0.5W, the 585 series achieves the industry’s highest efficacy.

With judgment dated July 19, 2018 (docket number 2 Ni 55/16 (EP)), the German Federal Patent Court fully confirmed the validity of the German part of Nichia’s YAG patent EP 936 682 (DE 697 02 929). As a consequence, the court completely rejected the nullity action of Everlight Electronics Europe, the German subsidiary of Taiwanese LED manufacturer Everlight. The judgment of the Federal Patent Court is not final and can be appealed.

Nichia Corporation has announced that two of its latest LED families have been recognized by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) for their unique and significant advancement to the art and science of lighting, per the IES 2018 Progress Report. The IES has noted the innovation and development of Nichia’s Optisolis™ series of LEDs and its discrete colors of the Direct Mountable Chip series of LEDs.

In September 2010, Nichia Corporation (“Nichia“) started a patent infringement lawsuit in Germany against Taiwanese LED manufacturer Harvatek Corporation (“Harvatek“) concerning Harvatek‘s white LED products

According to the research of LEDinside, the market scale of LED plant lighting is estimated to grow to US$ 633 million by 2022, with a CAGR of 30% during 2018-2022. Many LED producers have entered the market of horticulture lighting to share the expanding opportunities when the demands in the general lighting market are relatively weak. LEDinside has collected the updates of horticultural applications from LED firms of the world. 

The leading Japanese LED producer, Nichia Corporation released the news that the company decided to expand LED production capacity by building a new plant in response to the increasing demands of lighting and backlight LEDs as well as the applications for automotive use and others.

The Japanese LED giant Nichia, according industry sources, will supply Apple with its 0.3t LED chips for use in the backlight of the new iPhone’s LTPS-LCD panels.

LED applications have opened an explosive market in horticulture lighting. Nichia, the Japanese LED giant, set up a laboratorial plant factory in Shanghai to test how different LED light sources can alter the ingredients of plants to create medicinal effects. 

Nichia considered that in 2H18, the competition between LED makers will still go on due to the excess capacity of LED backlight and the weak market demands in the past two quarters. As the prices of LED chips and packaging has been down for years, there might be more acquisitions between corporates and some collapses for small and medium sized manufacturers. Generally speaking, 2018 is a tough year for the LED industry. 

Nichia, the leading LED Company based in Japan, held a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan and shared its state-of-the-art lighting technologies in automotive, medical, and horticultural applications. 

LED makers have been announcing their progress of Mini LED before reaching the final goal, Micro LED. Manufacturers in Taiwan and China started to ship Mini LED products from the second half of 2018. Nichia, the Japanese LED giant, also reported that it has completed the development process of Mini LED and is ready to mass produce related products that will be released by the end of the year.

Nichia Corporation (“Nichia”) and Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC, Lowe’s Companies, Inc. and L G Sourcing, Inc. have reached a settlement in the cases titled Nichia Corporation v. Lowe’s Companies, Inc. et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-00613-JRG (filed in the Eastern Districts of Texas); Nichia Corporation v. Lowe’s Companies, Inc. et al., Case No. 5:16-cv-00142-MOC-DSC (filed in the Western District of North Carolina); and Nichia Corporation v. Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-01455-JRG (filed in the Eastern Districts of Texas), mutually agreeing to dismissal of the lawsuits. While the terms of the agreement are confidential, both parties are pleased with the result. Nichia’s suits against VIZIO(1)(2)(3) and Feit(4)(5) in the Central District of California remain ongoing.

On May 18, 2018, Nichia Corporation (“Nichia”) filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against ASUS JAPAN Inc., a Japanese affiliate of Taiwanese ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (“ASUS”), and SYNNEX Infotec Corporation, a distributor of ASUS JAPAN Inc., seeking a compensation for damages.

Tokushima, Japan – April 25, 2018 - Nichia Corporation is proud to introduce discrete color options in its Direct Mountable Chip series, a similar technology to the industry’s Chip Scale Package (CSP).  Nichia’s Direct Mountable Chip color lineup, consisting of Royal Blue, Green, Amber and Red, along with its previously released white options, enables lighting customers to take advantage of Nichia’s unique Direct Mountable Chip technology in a wide range of applications.