By Kim Yoo-chul
The latest setback to hit the LG Group is its intellectual property battle with Germany’s Osram over lighting technology.
LG Electronics and LG Innotek are entangled in a legal battle with Osram in major markets like China, Germany and the U.S. over patents related to light-emitting diode (LED) lighting.
Judge David Shaw of the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in favor of the German firm, posting a notice on the group’s website Wednesday (KST) that LG companies have infringed one of the two Osram patents in dispute.
If Shaw’s finding is upheld by the full commission, it could result in an import ban on some of the LG-branded LED lighting products, a scenario company officials in Seoul dreaded as the worst-case possibility.
``We are sorry about the decision in the U.S. We and LG Innotek will try our best to protect our intellectual properties,’’ said an LG Electronics official.
LEDs, which can be loosely described as a light-glowing semiconductor, are increasingly used for providing lighting in consumer electronics products, vehicles, streets, buildings and homes as their low-power nature makes them preferable over incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent lamps.
Osram, which is the world’s second-biggest lighting company after Dutch-based Philips Electronics, has been fighting LG and also Samsung Electronics, Korea’s other technology giant, over LED lighting patents.
The LG Electronics official said that his company has already appealed in a response for the latest ruling to the International Trade Commission (ITC) in the United States. The review will start from next month.
LG and Samsung have each filed patent-infringement cases against Osram at the ITC. A court in Hamburg, Germany, said on June 21 that LG infringes an Osram patent on the conversion technology, and that LG has a chance to respond to that finding.