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Nichia waives light-emitting diode patent right(Kyodo News International (Tokyo) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 8--TOKYO -- Nichia Corp. said Wednesday it has waived its patent right for the blue light-emitting diode used in a broad range of products from traffic signals to mobile phone screens after a settled legal row with a former employee. Nichia said it had waived the right by the end of January to save 5.2 million yen a year in patent maintenance costs. The patent on the method of making crystal nitrogen gallium was invented by Shuji Nakamura while he was working with the company, based in Anan, Tokushima Prefecture. Nichia said it had stopped using the patented technology by the first half of 1997 due to its capacity of producing advanced products with another method. Companies having cross-licensing agreements with Nichia over the patented technology have not used it since 2002, it added. In January 2004, the Tokyo District Court ordered Nichia to pay 20 billion yen to Nakamura, saying the company had made huge profits through exclusive use of the blue LED patent. The company later appealed the ruling. A year later, Nichia and Nakamura reached a negotiated settlement on the dispute over the landmark patent with Nichia agreeing to pay 843 million yen to Nakamura, now a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The settlement, mediated by the Tokyo High Court, is the largest in Japan to be paid for an employee's invention. Nichia commercialized the blue LED in 1993. Experts say the invention was revolutionary, as it has made it possible to create all colors on computer screens when a blue LED is combined with red and green LEDs. Technology for red and green LEDs had been established earlier. |