Samsung sues JOLED for infringement of three patents!

As a new display manufacturing company strongly supported by the Japanese government, JOLED has always attracted much attention, and this time it has been challenged by Samsung again.

According to foreign media reports, on January 19, Intellectual Keystone Technology (IKT), a US subsidiary of Samsung Display, filed a lawsuit against JOLED and ASUS in the United States District Court for Western Texas.

According to IKT's indictment, the OLED panels produced and supplied by JOLED to ASUS infringed three of the company's patents, including patents for electronic devices, circuit boards and optoelectronic device manufacturing methods (patent number: 7342177), and emitting devices (patent number 7439943) (patent number 8665190).

Samsung countersues JOLED for the second time

It is worth noting that this is the second time Samsung has sued JOLED for infringement this year.

On January 8, Samsung Display filed a patent infringement lawsuit against ASUS and JOLED in the U.S. District Court for Western Texas. In Samsung's view, the OLED used in ASUS's ProArt professional-grade monitor infringes Samsung Display's thin-film transistor array (TFT array) patent (patent number 9768240), and JOLED is the manufacturer that manufactures and supplies the OLED for ASUS's monitor.

In court, Samsung Display stated that the patent was first registered in South Korea in October 2014, and then began to be reviewed and approved in the United States in May 2015, and was finally registered with the U.S. Patent Office on September 19, 2017. JOLED and ASUS clearly knew that the patent already existed, but still deliberately released and sold infringing products, causing huge losses to Samsung Display.

Samsung Display asked the court to issue an order prohibiting Asus and JOLED from using its patented inventions and demanded cash compensation, but the amount of compensation has not yet been determined.

Is Samsung's move just for revenge?

Industry insiders said that Samsung Display's move was most likely to retaliate against JOLED.

On June 22 last year, JOLED sued Samsung for patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and the Regional Court of Mannheim, Germany. JOLED told the court that Galaxy smartphones sold in the United States by Samsung Electronics, its panel subsidiary Samsung Display, and Samsung USA infringed six patents held by JOLED, including OLED panels, panel driving methods, and related OLED devices (patent number 9728130), so JOLED asked Samsung to compensate for its losses.

However, in my opinion, Samsung's two consecutive counter-suits are not just revenge, but are intended to cope with the increasingly fierce IP rights protection competition in the OLED panel field. In addition, Samsung Display recently hired Kim Changsik, a lawyer from a US law firm, as the head of the legal IP department to make early preparations for the increasing number of patent disputes.

Competition between Japanese and Korean manufacturers for OLED panels

With the continuous development of the OLED panel field, patent disputes are just a microcosm of the fierce competition in the panel market.

Samsung Display's mature AMOLED technology and sufficient production capacity still have absolute advantages, and its strategic cooperation with brands will be more in-depth in 2019. According to Sigmaintell data, its AMOLED smartphone panel shipments are close to 400 million pieces, which is basically the same as the previous year, and its shipments still lead the world. Not only Samsung, but also LG, a Korean company, has always been at the forefront of the OLED market.

Japan and South Korea have always been pioneers in OLED screen panel technology. However, Japan lost to South Korea in the LCD era, so it focused on the OLED track and strongly supported JOLED, intending to win back a game in the OLED market.

JOLED was founded in 2015 as one of the many initiatives of the Japanese government-backed INCJ to reverse the decline of Japanese technology companies. It is an OLED panel company jointly established by JDI, Panasonic, and Sony. It is also the only manufacturer in the world that can produce printed 4K OLED panels. Its products are mainly used in high-end displays, medical displays, and automotive applications. At present, the company has about 4,000 registered and pending OLED-related patents worldwide.

In order to catch up with the leading position of Samsung Display and LG of South Korea, JOLED is betting on new inkjet printing OLED panel manufacturing technology to challenge the industry leader, and has just started mass production of inkjet printing OLED panels in November 2019.

Compared with the traditional vacuum evaporation process used by Korean companies, JOLED's exclusive inkjet printing process is cheaper. Evaporation technology requires a vacuum environment and mask technology, which is more expensive.

The OLED inkjet printing process is a process technology that sprays a solution of less than a few tens of trillionths of a liter (Picoliter) onto the printed object at a frequency of more than hundreds of times per second. This greatly increases the sales volume of the material and the yield rate. The inkjet printing manufacturing process used by JOLED is to apply the liquid luminescent material to the substrate precisely like a printer, which has the advantages of high material utilization, large area, low cost and flexibility.

Inkjet equipment manufacturer Kateeva said that its innovative inkjet printing precision deposition technology platform deposits coatings on complex application layers with high speed and accuracy. The solution can mass-produce flexible and large-size OLED displays and other products in an affordable way.

At the same time, Samsung Display and LG are also committed to introducing inkjet printing processes and actively developing this technology.

Technology is only one aspect; raw materials also determine the direction of the panel industry.

In the Japan-South Korea trade war, Japan has strengthened the export control of fluorinated polyimide, a raw material for panels, to South Korea, which has greatly restricted the development of South Korea's OLED panel industry and highlighted the important position of Japanese companies in the production of various key raw materials and components for OLED. Currently, more than 90% of the world's OLED basic materials (including fluorinated polyimide) are produced by Japanese companies such as Sumitomo Chemical and Showa Denko, and their quality is also the best in the world; the world's main suppliers of OLED small molecule luminescent materials are Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui Chemicals; OLED glass substrates are mainly produced by Nippon Electric Glass Company, and evaporation masks are mainly produced by Dai Nippon Printing (DNP).

Conclusion:

Behind the lawsuit between Samsung and JOLED lies the competitive game in the Japanese and Korean OLED panel markets. The dispute between Japan and South Korea also exposes the limitations of the development of South Korea's display industry and its helplessness in being controlled by others.

As a powerful supplier of midstream and terminal products in the OLED industry, my country currently occupies a large market share in the panel and mobile phone industries. The huge market share also reveals the strong desire of Chinese panel companies for raw materials and technology.

If Japan changes direction and points its spearhead at my country, my country's display industry will also suffer a huge impact, so it is necessary to "be prepared for danger in times of peace."