Samsung, Sharp to End Patent Litigations Over LCDs (Update1)
February 08, 2010, 10:48 AM EST(Adds background on dispute from third paragraph.)
By Kevin Cho
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co. and Sharp Corp. agreed to end all patent-infringement litigation against each other and cross-license technology related to liquid- crystal displays.
Samsung, the world’s largest LCD maker, and Sharp will drop all pending lawsuits and share patents on LCD panels and modules, the two companies said in separate statements today. Financial details weren’t disclosed.
The agreement ends more than two years of disputes between Samsung and Sharp, Japan’s largest LCD maker, over patented technology for LCD TVs. Each had won orders from the U.S. International Trade Commission banning imports of the other’s televisions into the U.S. market and both companies have been challenging those decisions.
Last month, Sharp filed a new patent-infringement complaint against Samsung over LCDs with the ITC. In December, the ITC said it would investigate Samsung complaints that Sharp TVs infringe patents related to the way LCD screens portray the black and white portion of images, minimizing the effects of static electricity and improving the image quality.
Samsung was the top seller of LCD TVs in the U.S. in the third quarter with almost 17 percent of the market, according to researcher ISuppli Corp. Sharp didn’t rank among the top five.
--Editors: Jonathan Annells, Young-Sam Cho.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kevin Cho in Seoul at kcho2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net
