Business Korea reports that Ireland-based OLED IP company Solas OLED recently dropped two lawsuits it filed in the US against Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. According to Solas Samsung Electronics infringed on its patent on OLED panels in its latest smartphone products including the Galaxy Z-Fold 2, and LG Electronics infringed on an OLED TV patent.

Apparently Solas dropped both lawsuits.

Ireland-based OLED IP company Solas OLED announced that it has prevailed in its patent infringement action in Germany against LG Display, LG Electronics and Sony. The Mannheim District Court in Germany held that the defendants had infringed Solas’ German patent DE 102 54 511 B4 concerning a control circuit for light emitting diodes.

This technology, owned by Solas, is used in OLED panels used in LG ans Sony's TVs. According to the court's decision, LG and Sony will have to stop marketing products in Germany that infringe upon Solas' patents and they will have to recall from commercial customers all infringing products. LG and Sony must also must render to Solas a detailed accounting necessary to establish damages owed by the defendants for sales of infringing products in Germany dating back to April, 2009.

A report from Korea updates that three Samsung Display researchers in Suwon were arrested for allegedly leaking OLED technology. Directors of a Chinese company subsidiary were also arrested in this case

According to the report, the technology that was leaked relates to optical alignment of inkjet printing processes. Samsung reportedly invested over 10 billion won ($8.5 million) in developing this technology.

In 2012, we first heard that eMagin is developing direct emission (or direct patterning, as the company calls it) OLED microdisplays. Fast forward into 2020, and the company is aiming to soon start producing such displays (it already launched its first such panel, see more below). In this article we'll look into the technology and the latest updates from eMagin.

All current OLED microdisplays on the market from all producers use a white OLED with color filter. This is a simple design, but it is wasteful in energy, as the filters block around 80% of the light, and in addition to achieve the white color one needs to use a blue OLED emitter (in addition to a yellow one, or red and green ones) - and blue is the least efficient color for OLED emission.

JOLED announced that it has filed lawsuits in the US and Germany against Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display. JOLED says that Samsung infringed on its OLED patents without a license.

JOLED (Japan OLED) was established in August 2014 by Japan Display, Sony and Panasonic to produce OLED displays using inkjet printing technology. The company has (or applied for) around 4,000 global OLED patents. We do know which patents JOLED refers to in its new law suit.

Merck announced that it has acquired over 700 OLED display applications patent families from Konica Minolta. The acquired IP will be used to "further enhance Merck’s position as key supplier of OLED materials".

Merck did not detail the financial terms of this deal.

A new company has recently been launched in Poland, to commercialize a new family of TADF OLED compounds. Noctiluca, which takes its name from a bio-luminescent marine creature, was established a few months ago with aims to be the world's first company to produce a commercial-ready blue TADF emitter.

Noctiluca's story begins with an innovative organic DSSC solar cell platform that was developed at Synthex, an organic chemistry development platform company based in Torun, Poland. A few years ago the researchers turned their attention to light emitting materials (which are quite similar to the light harvesting materials used in solar panels) and intensive research culminated in a promising family of new TADF compounds - which was then spun-off as Noctiluca,

Ireland-based OLED IP company Solas OLED has filed a lawsuit in the US (Texas) against Apple for patent infringements. The lawsuit mentions three patents (USPTO# 6072450, 7446338 and 7573068) that relate to the OLED stack, structure and circuitry (for example one of the patents relates to the formation of a backplane on a polyimide substrate).

Apple is of course not the producer of the OLED displays - but Solas says that Apple is accused of "making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing products that infringe the claims" of its patents. Apple's OLED suppliers are Samsung (for the iPhone and MacBook Pro Touch bar devices) and LG Display (for the Apple Watch display).

In November 2018 it was reported that South Korean prosecutors indicted a group of 11 executives and employees of Korea-based Toptec, a Samsung Electronics supplier, accusing them with leaking Samsung's flexible OLED technology to Chinese display makers.

According to new reports from Korea, the South Korean government has now decided to restrict the export of OLED production equipment. Korea will designate OLED equipment as a "national core technology" which means that any export, acquisition or merger deals will require government approval. Under the current law, display panel design, process, manufacturing and drivers are already designated as national core technologies, and Korea wants to add production equipment as well to prevent another case like Toptec from happening.

LG Display has already demonstrated rollable OLED TVs (and according to reports it aims to release the first such TV to the market in 2019) - but Samsung has been left behind as its current LCD-QLED TV technology choice does not enable rollable TVs.

LGD's prototype rollable TV (unveiled in 2018) rolls vertically, inside a single case at the bottom. According to a new patent recently awarded in the US (USPTO #10,162,387) Samsung has a different design in mind - a TV that rolls horizontally, as you can see in the image above.