Samsung, the Korean market leader in TV sized LCD technology, and Japan’s Sharp, which itself was prominent in the creation of LCD technology, have finally agreed a patent deal that will see the end of a long legal dispute.
Neither company is allowed to disclose the details of the agreement, except to say that overall the deal is in favor of Sharp, so it looks like either there is a permanent royalty payment per device to Sharp, or more likely a single one time payment for all patents over the foreseeable future, perhaps a ten year period.
The legal actions were pursued under US law, as well as in Korea and Japan, and in Germany and the Netherlands to cover all the markets which are most important to both companies. It was also taken to the US International Trade Commission.
In March 2009 a Tokyo court seemed to be heading towards supporting Samsung’s position and the company issued a release to that extent, but then Sharp had wins in both the Netherlands and at the ITC which had issued orders to block Samsung LCD panels. The legal actions have been going on since 2007 and in all they will now withdraw about 20 suits. The settlement includes a patent cross-licensing agreement which allows each company to use the patents of the other in their products.