Samsung hits China’s BOE over OLED patents
July 4, 2023
By Chris Forrester
China’s giant display manufacturer Beijing Oriental Electronics (BOE) has been hit by South Korea’s Samsung over alleged patent infringements on its Smartphone OLEDs.
The move indicates Samsung’s determination that they will take strong measures to protect their technology. This comes at a time when Chinese-made products are increasing their presence in OLED, the improved and next-generation displays, after gaining market influence by selling large quantities of LCDs at low prices.
This is the first time that the display arm of Samsung Electronics filed a lawsuit against BOE. Samsung filed its lawsuits with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on June 26, and is alleging that BOE infringed on its four patented OLED technologies, especially those used in Apple’s iPhone 12 smartphone. The named patented technologies included Samsung Display’s Diamond Pixel technology.
The lawsuit argues that Samsung Display was informed that copycat OLED displays made by Chinese companies, and which were used as replacements for original Samsung Display displays for iPhone smartphones at smartphone repair shops in the US. The lawsuit states that customers needing repairs to their phones could choose between the original Samsung screen and the copycat one, which Samsung alleges differed in cost and quality when entrusting them with their iPhone 12 repairs.
Samsung Display had filed lawsuits with the US International Trade Commission (USITC) last December against smartphone parts wholesale suppliers in the US and claiming that they have supplied phone repair shops with replacement displays for Samsung’s Galaxy phones and Apple’s iPhones. In the process, BOE was accused of providing these companies with copycat panels.
As a countermeasure, BOE has itself filed lawsuits against Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display’s Chinese branch with a Chinese court in May.