Nichia patent litigation strategy in LED area

from ETNews:

Nichia’s such patent strategy has been widely known in overseas market. Starting with six year long lawsuit with Toyota Gosei since 1996, it has had continued patent lawsuit with Osram, Cree and Citizen. As a result of lawsuits, it has gotten mutual patent sharing and unilateral patent possession. With patent dispute, it has put pressure on companies using rival’s LED to keep market share and at the same time has gotten patent use fee. In addition, Nichia could maintain price competitiveness since patent use fee reflected to rival’s manufacturing cost.

Seoul Semiconductor said, “Nichia wants to maintain market share, rather than earning patent compensation. That’s why it has continued to file lawsuits even though it has received almost no huge compensation.” In response, an official of Nichia said, “We don’t have any special reason in lawsuit against Seoul Semiconductor. Our principle is to take stern action against companies that infringe our patent right.”