Seoul Semiconductor sues Feit Electric for patent infringement

Seoul Semiconductor Company announced it filed a lawsuit against the US-based Feit Electric for patent infringement involving 12 assets. The Ansan-si headquartered LED manufacturer revealed its legal action on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

Seoul Semiconductor shared it filed the patent infringement lawsuit against Feit Electric at the United States District Court for the Central District of California. As per The Korea Times, in its complaint, the company is asking the court to ban Feit from selling lighting products that it thinks were made by infringing its 12 patents.

The Korean company said it had already filed five lawsuits against Feit Electric in the U.S. due to its continued patent infringement and won two cases so far. The court ordered stores that are distributing and selling Feit products to stop the sales, and this was in 2019 and 2020.

The injunctions against these retailers in the Eastern District of Texas and the Central District of California are permanent, but the infringing did not stop. Despite the order, Seoul Semiconductor said that Feit still failed to put its patent infringement practices right, and this is why it is filing a new lawsuit so the latter will take action this time.

"We have drawn a ban on sales in patent lawsuits against distributors of Feit products," the company's representative said in a statement. "But Feit's infringement was not corrected after the lawsuits, so we filed a lawsuit directly against Feit this time."

Seoul Semiconductor reiterated that Feit Electric's lighting products infringe 12 of its light-emitting diodes (LED) patents. It is now seeking a permanent injunction against the company and its distributors to halt the sales of the infringed items.

"There are unethical companies that do not respect intellectual properties despite emphasizing corporate responsibility, such as ESG," Seoul Semiconductor's official said in a press release. "Intellectual property rights are necessary to respect in order to create fair competition in the market."

Finally, it was noted that Seoul Semiconductor has already sued many companies in the past for the same violation related to its patents. One of its big lawsuits was against Taiwan's Everlight Electronics, and it won the case after a German court banned Everlight from selling LED products, and some of its sold items were also recalled in 2018 and 2019.