Malaysian LED manufacturer Dominant violates OSRAM intellectual property rights

The higher regional court Karlsruhe confirmed that Malaysian LED manufacturer Dominant is illegally using or has used OSRAM AG technology with seven patents. As the court of first instance, the regional court Mannheim already reached the same verdict regarding three of these patents on July 25, 2007. OSRAM had sued the manu-facturer on several patents and industrial properties. “The ruling of the court of appeal in Karlsruhe is an important confirmation of our intellectual property rights”, said Aldo Kamper, CEO of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors.

An important group of patents, whose infringement the appeal court in Karlsruhe confirmed, effects conversion technology that helps produce homogeneous white light. This patent group is essential, as it is used in multiple forms of white LEDs.

The legal position of OSRAM against Dominant has already been confirmed in other countries. In the USA, the International Trade Commission (ITC) imposed an import ban on certain Dominant products in February 2006 due to patent infringement. Vice versa, suits filed by Dominant against OSRAM for inadmissable claims of patent infringement and improper exploitation of patent positions were rejected by courts in both the USA and Malaysia.