Lumileds announced on July 23rd that the Superior Court of California has issued permanent Injunction against Elec-Tech International (ETI) for misappropriation of trade secrets, prohibiting ETI and its affiliates from using, disclosing, licensing, or selling Lumileds’ epitaxy technology trade secrets. The injunction also prohibits ETI from manufacturing, distributing, importing, exporting, or selling any products that use certain of ETI’s own epitaxy growth recipes that the jury concluded were produced using Lumileds’ trade secrets.

In August 2018, Lumileds reported that it has won the verdict against ETI, who was accused of stealing trade secrets of Lumileds’s LED technology. On the other hand, ETI asserted that it did not use Lumileds’ technology and planned to appeal the verdict.

However, based on evidence proved by Lumileds, the Court granted the injunction as the result following last August’s jury trial. Furthermore, the Court has denied ETI’s motions for a new trial and to set aside the verdict awarded by the Jury.

After a four-week jury trial beginning in July 2018, a jury of 12 people found that ETI misappropriated and used five Lumileds’ trade secrets related to epitaxy technology. These trade secrets include the foundational epitaxy-development technology used by Lumileds to produce its high performance, industry-leading LEDs. The jury determined that ETI used Lumileds’ trade secrets in six of their recipes and the misappropriation and use of Lumileds’ trade secrets was a substantial factor in causing ETI to have obtained an unjust benefit of US$66 million.

“We are very pleased with the Court’s determination that a permanent injunction is warranted in this case as it further validates the jury’s findings from the 2018 verdict,” said Cheree McAlpine, Chief Legal Officer and Senior Vice President of Lumileds. “Protecting our innovations is paramount to our business, and we will continue to vigorously defend our intellectual property.”