Samsung Display and BOE ended their long OLED IP battle, as BOE agrees to pay royalties for Samsung's patents

According to a report in Korea, BOE and Samsung Display have finally ended their long AMOLED technology dispute, as BOE has agreed to pay royalties for Samsung Display's OLED IP. The two companies will withdraw all their ongoing lawsuits, including in the US and China.

Samsung Display and BOE are fighting a legal battle for quite some time, mostly in the US. The most important one was based on Samsung's claims that BOE, and also some phone parts retailers, infringe upon its AMOLED patents, and have asked the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban the import of any devices that use BOE's AMOLED displays, in addition to after-market AMOLED displays. In July 2025, the ITC found BOE guilty as charged, and following its preliminary ruling to ban BOE's AMOLED, it updated that it will likely ban the import of BOE's AMOLEDs to the US for 15 years, and issued a Limited Exclusion Order (LEO). The ban was not to include devices that use BOE's AMOLEDs, though (such as Apple's iPhones), but it was still to be a problem for BOE which is why the company likely agreed to pay the royalties to Samsung.

The ITC said in its statement that "Samsung Display had implemented exceptional security measures, yet BOE unlawfully acquired and used its trade secrets". This results in "serious threats and substantial harm" to Samsung Display. The import ban was to last for 14 years and 8 months, which is the period of time it took SDC to develop its core AMOLED technologies. When making this period calculation, the ITC added different development timelines for multiple individual technologies that BOE infringed upon. This is said to be an usual calculation method for the ITC.

BOE, and other display makers in China, were worried that device makers will be hesitant to adopt Chinese-made OLED panels following this decision, and will prefer to order more panels from Korean-based OLED makers. BOE has been struggling with quality issues at its iPhone AMOLEDs, for quite some time - and adding these legal issues can be harmful for its AMOLED business. Apple did sign up BOE as one of its AMOLED suppliers for the iPhone 17 range - but only for phones that are to be sold in China - which limits BOE's share to only around 1% of the iPhone 17 AMOLED market.