Enforcement of B.O.S.E. Patents: A Continuous Success
White light generation is one of the most fascinating topics the LED industry deals with. The silicate-based white LED technology enables white LEDs to be produced with higher accuracy and increased brightness. Preferred applications for these kinds of LEDs are smartphones, notebooks, navigation systems, and other display products. Said technology is thus relevant for a significant proportion of today’s LED market.
Tridonic Jennersdorf GmbH together with Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd (Japan) and Leuchtstoffwerk Breitungen GmbH and Litec GbR (both Germany) form the B.O.S.E consortium owning basic patents for a technology to generate white light applying alkali earth silicate phosphors at blue and UV LEDs. The B.O.S.E. Consortium respects industrial properties of third parties while it seeks to protect its intellectual property rights and takes actions against alleged infringers where appropriate and necessary.
Successfully concluded infringement lawsuits (21 O 4656/17, 21 O 6894/17) against telecommunication retailer S-KON eKontor24 GmbH at the District Court of Munich I belong to the Consortium’s latest commitments for pursuing enforcements against those infringe their patent rights. According to a settlement S-KON eKontor24 is inter alia obliged to compensate damages by payment of license fees between EUR 1.00 and EUR 5.00 per each HTC device in dispute per item beside bearing overall costs of the court procedure. Prior to this litigation, the Consortium successfully reached settlement in lawsuit about displays with the AOC International (Europe) B.V. and AOC International (Europe) GmbH and the companies entered into an agreement. The B.O.S.E. Consortium plans to continue and expand its enforcement efforts against market participants at each distribution level including direct manufacturers and distributors as well.
To provide this white light LED technology to the LED industry, the B.O.S.E. consortium offers two different licensing models: an application license for the use of the white light LED technology and a material license for the production and sale of the orthosilicate luminescent materials (http://www.tridonic.com/com/de/lizenz.asp).
The Consortium has already granted application licenses for its white light LED technology to over 40 LED manufacturers worldwide including concluded agreements with Chinese manufacturers through Toyoda Gosei’s Chinese arm Toyoda Gosei Optoelectronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd (http://www.tgoptesh.com.cn/about/ip.htm).
The phosphor dispersions are simple to prepare and to apply at LEDs.
