News

10 March 2009

 

Rothschild files LED patent complaint with ITC against firms in Taiwan and China

At the end of February, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, professor emerita of Materials Science and Engineering at Columbia University in New York, filed a complaint requesting that the US International Trade Commission (ITC) initiate an investigation against China’s Xiamen Sanan Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd and Taiwan’s Chi Mei Lighting Technology Corp, Tekcore Co Ltd, Toyolite Technologies Corp, Tyntek Corp and Visual Photonics Epitaxy Co Ltd. 

Citing Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, the complaint alleges unlawful importation into the USA and sale of certain LED chips, laser diode chips and products containing them that infringe US patent no. 5,252,499 (‘Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors Having Low Bipolar Resistivity and Method of Formation’, issued in 1993, covering a method of producing gallium nitride-based semiconductors for LEDs and laser diodes emitting in the blue, green, violet and ultraviolet end of the spectrum).  

Rothschild further asserts that the patent is the subject of a number of licenses, following litigation in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (filed in 2005 and settled last March by LED maker Philips Lumileds of San Jose, CA, USA) and a pending investigation before the ITC, ‘Certain Short-Wavelength Light Emitting Diodes, Laser Diodes and Products Containing Same’ (following a complaint filed against more than 30 firms in February 2008). None of the defendants in the district court actions or respondents in the pending ITC investigation are named as a proposed respondent in the latest ITC complaint. 

The complaint also alleges that domestic industry exists “as a result of Professor Rothschild’s substantial investment in the exploitation of the ’499 patent through enforcement and licensing.”  Specifically, Rothschild “has vigorously enforced her rights with regard to the patent as a part of her licensing efforts” and such efforts have resulted in license grants under the patent to several firms, including LED makers Nichia Chemical Industries Ltd, Toyoda Gosei Co Ltd and Seoul Semiconductor Co Ltd as well as Taiwan’s Epistar Corp and Everlight Electronics Co Ltd.

Rothschild began her research career in private industry, working with Sylvania Research Laboratories in Bayside, NY in the 1950s and later at Philips Laboratories in Briarcliff Manor, NY before joining Columbia as a professor of materials science in 1985. She conducted research in the 1980s and ’90s into the electrical and optical properties of wide-bandgap semiconductors that is claimed to have been pivotal in the development of short-wavelength emitting (blue, green, violet and ultraviolet) diodes now used in consumer electronics. Recognized by the American Physical Society as a Notable Woman Physicist in 1998, Rothschild was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1982.

Rothschild is represented by intellectual property attorneys Albert Jacobs and Daniel Ladow of Dreier LLP.

See related items:

Rothschild considers adding firms to ITC LED patent case

Consumer electronics firms license Rothschild LED patents

Epistar licenses Rothschild LED patents

Seoul and Everlight settle ITC action brought by Rothschild

Search: Rothschild Chi Mei Lighting Technology Tekcore Tyntek Visual Photonics Epitaxy

Visit: www.usitc.gov