On July 12, 2018 (Japan time), Nitride Semiconductor Co., Ltd. ("Nitride") filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against Digi-Key Corporation d/b/a Digi-Key Electronics ("Digi-Key"), which sells UV-LED products on the internet that are manufactured by RayVio Corporation ("RayVio"), a CA-based UV-LED manufacturer, and RayVio. In the complaint, Nitride is seeking injunction(including destruction of infringing products) and damages, asserting that Digi-Key and RayVio infringe Nitride’s patent (JP 3,285,341, “Method for Manufacturing Gallium Nitride Compound Semiconductor”) by manufacturing and selling the UV-LED products

Tridonic Jennersdorf GmbH, a subsidiary of Tridonic GmbH & Co KG, Dornbirn and thus part of the Zumtobel Group lighting group, has filed a lawsuit against the company S-KON eKontor24 GmbH based in Germany. The subject of the legal action brought before Munich District Court is the sale of smartphones manufactured by HTC of Taiwan.  

Chinese LED manufacturer Lianovation filed a suit against Hanen Digital Interconnect Culture (Hanen Digital) for not returning earnest money after the two organizations canceled an acquisition deal, reported Chinese-language media Sinai.

U.S. LED manufacturer Cree has filed a lawsuit against another LED competitor MaxBrite over design patent and trademark infringement last week, reported Triangle Business Journal.

An Arizona-based LED luminaire manufacturer Optolum is suing top U.S. LED manufacturer Cree over patent infringement, reported The News & Observer.

On October, 14, 2016, in a lawsuit filed by Nichia Corporation (“Nichia”) against Tachibana Eletech Co., Ltd (“Tachibana”) and E&E Japan Co., Ltd. (“E&E”), which companies imported and/or sold Blue LEDs manufactured by a Taiwanese company, Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd., (“Everlight”), the Tokyo District Court found that the importation/sale of those Blue LEDs by E&E and Tachibana constituted infringement of Nichia's patent.

In June 2016 NICHIA commenced a lawsuit claiming that certain white LED-containing products sold by B&Q plc, the largest DIY company in the UK, and sourced from third-party Asian manufacturers infringed Nichia's European “YAG” patents.

Japanese LED manufacturer Nichia left a blazing trail of patent lawsuits in 2016, and the latest suit against B&Q seems to add onto the latest list of U.S. LED bulb retailers and distributor suits, except this suit should be viewed independently.

In 2012, EVERLIGHT filed a declaratory judgment action of invalidity and non-infringement against Nichia’s U.S. Patent Nos. 5,998,925 and 7,531,960 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. These two patents are directed to YAG phosphors being used in LEDs and phosphor concentration. The jury on April 22, 2015 has found all the asserted patent claims invalid. And the court has rejected Nichia’s motions for a new trial and confirmed the jury finding on January 19, 2016. 

MaxLite announced that it filed suit against ATG Electronics, a California-based LED lighting company, and James Steedly, Sophia Galleher and Matthew Kim, three former employees of MaxLite. The suit, filed on February 12, 2015, is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

In general, LED Manufacturers performed quite well over the past eight months in 2015. But competition among LED manufacturers intensified through price wars, patent disputes and fighting over distribution channel were overwhelming. A summary of recent lawsuits among these manufacturers as following:

A new white LED patent which covers, among others, YAG phosphors has been granted by the European Patent Office in favor of Nichia Corporation ("Nichia"), namely EP 2 197 053.

In the ongoing Foshan Lighting deceptive financial lighting case, another 519 plaintiffs are now demanding compensation, reported Chinese media Sinai.

TCP International Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: TCPI) ("TCP" or "the Company") today issued the following statement in response to the lawsuit recently filed by its General Counsel: 

A Technical Consumer Products, Inc (TCP) employee has filed a lawsuit against company CEO Ellis Yan for alleged business misconduct and aggressive behavior towards employees in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, Ohio, U.S., according to several Cleveland media reports.

After Shuji Nakamura was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics last Tuesday, the lawsuit the Japanese scientist brought against former employer Nichia in 2001 over patent compensation received renewed media attention. The Japanese LED manufacturer insisted it compensated Nakamura fairly for his work at a press conference in Taipei on Thursday. 

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics was shared between three Japanese blue LED inventors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura. The three inventors were recognized for their achievements in the highly energy efficient blue LED, which led to the emergence of white light.