On July 12, 2018 (Japan time), Nitride Semiconductor Co., Ltd. ("Nitride") filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against Digi-Key Corporation d/b/a Digi-Key Electronics ("Digi-Key"), which sells UV-LED products on the internet that are manufactured by RayVio Corporation ("RayVio"), a CA-based UV-LED manufacturer, and RayVio. In the complaint, Nitride is seeking injunction(including destruction of infringing products) and damages, asserting that Digi-Key and RayVio infringe Nitride’s patent (JP 3,285,341, “Method for Manufacturing Gallium Nitride Compound Semiconductor”) by manufacturing and selling the UV-LED products.

Based on the U.S. patent corresponding to the Japanese patent described above, on May 23, 2017 (PDT), Nitride has already filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California against RayVio, and on September 22, 2017 (CDT), Nitride has already filed a patent infringement lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota against Digi-Key.

Nitride is a pioneer in the field of UV-LED. With Professor Shiro Sakai at Tokushima University (Japan), Nitride succeeded in development of highly efficient UV-LED in 2000 for the first time in the world and has continued to manufacture and sell UV-LED thereafter. Nitride has made a huge investment in R&D to develop and modify UV-LED, which has been quite challenging.

Nitride places its intellectual property rights as its vitally important management assets. Accordingly, Nitride will take resolute actions to against infringers whom Nitride found so in any country where appropriate and necessary to protect its patents and other intellectual property rights.