Everlight Fights Back Against Nichia in LED Patent Battle

In 2006, Nichia brought the patent infringement lawsuit against Everlight in Taiwan and sought damages of NTD 80,000,000. Everlight fought back aggressively by invalidating Nichia’s patent in issue in Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) in the same year. Last July the Intellectual Property Court held in the civil lawsuit that the patent is invalid and that there is no legal ground for the claim of NTD 80,000,000 in damages. In March 2011 the IP Court in the administrative procedure further ordered the TIPO to revoke Nichia’s patent in issue. Nichia appealed, yet in October the Taiwan Supreme Administrative Court affirmed the IP Court’s decision, upholding that Nichia’s patent is invalid and granting victory to Everlight. Soon after in November the Taiwan Supreme Court dismissed Nichia’s appeal in the civil infringement lawsuit, and Everlight won final victory over Nichia in both administrative and civil actions.

Facing Nichia’s press releases alleging baseless patent infringements in an attempt to affect Everlight’s goodwill, Everlight brought an unfair competition lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court today (12/1) and sought an order compelling Nichia to stop such behavior. Nichia have repeatedly proclaimed that LED manufacturers and distributors should respect Nichia’s patent rights, and on their website have said that Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese manufacturers’ recent behavior of disregarding patent rights in the Japanese market has grown intolerable. However, because the validity of the patents Nichia used to claim infringement over Everlight’s products is questionable. Everlight has decided, after many years of litigation against Nichia, to strike back to fully protect the interests of its customers and shareholders and to continue to bring patent invalidation lawsuits against Nichia in multiple countries.

Through the endeavors of the whole LED industry all over the world, LED technology has become the most energy-efficient, environmental-friendly, and health-oriented products now, and LED makers can manufacture and sell a range of LED products through fair market mechanisms. Everlight consistently takes intellectual property rights seriously and has reached several mutually beneficial cross-license and patent license agreements with other companies in the industry. However, when facing unfair competition, Everlight will strike back when appropriate and take strong moves to protect the interests of its customers and clients.