Idemitsu Kosan and Merck concluded a collaboration agreement that allows each party to use the other party’s OLED material-related patents in certain areas.

In the remarkably fast-expanding OLED market, Idemitsu and Merck are both leading OLED material companies and have continued to supply a variety of high-performance OLED materials to customers. Each company has a long development history of OLED materials and owns a multitude of patents related to OLED materials.

Under this collaborative relationship, each company will be allowed to develop, manufacture and sell OLED materials in certain areas of the other company’s material-related patents under specified conditions. This will help to accelerate the generation of new high-performance materials (higher efficiency, longer life time, etc.), by allowing both parties to exploit undeveloped areas of OLED materials with different knowledge and experience.

The companies expect to continue discussions for expansion of the collaboration to include other areas in the future.

The OLED market is expected to grow further in the field of display and lighting. Through this collaborative agreement, both leading companies will have greater freedom to develop high-performance materials and strive for further expansion of the OLED market.