Samsung’s USD 200 million Novaled acquisition plan paves way to solve OLED patent disputes

Samsung is reportedly nearing the acquisition of German OLED manufacturer Novaled for USD 200 million, according to reports by Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal.

The reports cited insiders disclosing Samsung and Novaled will be sealing the acquisition deal this week. Novaled’s Chief Marketing Officer Gerd Guenther has confirmed the two companies are currently in negotiations. Novaled started off as a R&D for LED, and received equity investments from Samsung Venture Investment as early as Sept. 2011. The German company later applied for U.S. IPO, but nothing came forth afterwards.

Market analysts pointed out, the main objective of Samsung’s acquisition of Novaled is to settle recent OLED patent disputes. In the second half of 2012, LG sued Samsung for infringing its OLED patent, and Samsung countered by requesting the court to invalidate seven LG patents. If Samsung successfully acquires Novaled, it will obtain all OLED patents of the German company, which will no doubt give Samsung more leverage in its patent wars with LG.

According to sources, Samsung suspected 11 employees leaked the company’s OLED technology details to LG Display in 2011, and filed a lawsuit against LG. The two companies later asked the court separately to ban sales of the other’s products. At one point, the patent wars eased slightly with the mediation of the Korean government, but in March 2013 LG filed another lawsuit against Samsung for illegally using its OLED patents, and demanded compensation.

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