Patent disputes between Japan’s Nichia and Taiwan’s Everlight Electronics have been on-going since 2012. The two companies have been pursuing litigation against one another over LED patents. Everlight won a victory in late 2014 and early 2015, when courts in Germany, followed by the USA, declared two of Nichia’s patents invalid.
Nichia has now obtained two new patents, mainly covering YAG phosphoric material, from the European Patent Office (EPO). The company is using these patents to strength its case against Everlight (and its European subsidiary, Everlight Electronics GmbH). Everlight has been accused of infringing patent EP 936 682 (one of those declared invalid), and is now also accused of violating the two new patents.
For its part, Everlight has dismissed Nichia’s claims. The company has said that the ‘new’ patents are merely two families of the EP 936 682 patent.
