Retired Columbia University professor and LED innovator Gertrude Neumark Rothschild has reached her fourth settlement of patent infringement claims, this time with Epistar (the other licensees are Toyoda Gosei, Osram and Philips Lumileds, which I wrote about in a previous post). She had accused the Taiwanese technology company of infringing two of her patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 4,904,618 and 5,252,499.
The patents relate to methods of doping semiconductors, which means adding impurities to increase the number of free charge carriers. Rothschild’s patented process made high spectral range LEDs, such as blue and green, commercially feasible. Under the terms of the agreement, Rothschild granted Epistar a worldwide license to use the technology in the patents.
This agreement was not the result of litigation and was announced by Rothschild’s counsel. But other litigation over these patents continues, with a suit pending in federal district court in New York against semiconductor maker Cree Inc. and an International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation into possible infringement by more than 25 companies, including Sony, Toshiba, Motorola and Samsung. (see my previous post the ITC case)
