SEOUL (Reuters) – A German court has ordered the recall and destruction of some products from lighting maker Signify that infringed on the patents of Seoul Semiconductor, the South Korean firm said on Thursday.
The court in Dusseldorf ordered distributor Conrad Electronic to take the actions and said there would be a fine of up to 250,000 euros ($259,925) for each violation of its order, Seoul Semiconductor said in a statement.
Netherlands-based Signify – the world’s biggest lighting maker which was spun off from Philips in 2016 – said the patents in question had expired.
The company told Reuters it had started legal action to show that the patents were now invalid, without going into further details on the case.
Seoul Semiconductor, which has sued multinational companies over patents, said it uses about 10% of its revenue in research and development and holds more than 18,000 patents in light-emitting diode technology.
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(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Andrew Heavens)
