South Korean companies that want to use patent batons to "challenge" Chinese panel companies have faced a counterclaim from Chinese companies this time.

BOE sues Samsung for patent infringement

On May 8th, Observer Network found that BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as BOE) has recently added 9 new court notices. The plaintiffs include not only listed company BOE, but also Chongqing BOE Display Technology Co., Ltd. and Chengdu BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. The causes of the case are all disputes over infringement of invention patents, but specific infringement details have not been disclosed.

On the defendant's side, it includes several Samsung related companies, including Shanghai Samsung Semiconductor Co., Ltd., Dongguan Samsung Vision Co., Ltd., Tianjin Samsung Vision Mobile Co., Ltd., Samsung Semiconductor (Xi'an) Co., Ltd., and Samsung (China) Investment Co., Ltd. The other defendant is Chongqing JD Jiapin Trading Co., Ltd. The actual controller of the company after equity penetration is JD founder Liu Qiangdong.

It is worth noting that in some court announcements, some Samsung related companies and Chongqing JD.com Jiapin Trading Co., Ltd. were also listed as defendants, with the latter's direct controlling shareholder being JD.com Wuxing Electric Group. Among these 9 announcements, 8 of them will be held on May 18th this year, and another one will be held in August next year. The first Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing is responsible for the trial.

Observer Network contacted the media relations department of BOE regarding relevant matters, and the staff of the other party stated that the matter is still under internal investigation; JD did not respond to requests for comment.

As a leading player in the global display panel industry, the patent dispute between South Korean companies Samsung, LG, and BOE is not uncommon.

But before that, in most cases, South Korean companies were "challenging" Chinese companies.

For example, at the end of last year, it was reported that GOT (Global OLED Technology), the patent asset operation subsidiary of LG Display, issued a patent infringement warning to BOE in the first half of 2022.

Samsung is not idle either

At the beginning of 2022, Samsung Display protested to Apple and stated that it would not acquiesce in BOE's slight change in its diamond arrangement technology (OLED pixel structure patent design) to produce OLED panels suitable for Apple; In December of that year, Samsung also filed a patent infringement investigation with the International Trade Commission (ITC) of the United States and listed 17 American wholesalers as defendants. However, the industry generally believed that BOE and other Chinese panel enterprises were the real targets.

Behind the frequent actions of Korean companies in the patent field is the rapid evolution of the global panel industry pattern.

In the relatively mature field of liquid crystal panels (LCDs), Chinese enterprises have become the industry leader after years of capacity expansion. According to the latest data of RUNTO, in the first quarter of 2023, the shipping volume of LCD TV panel factories in Chinese Mainland in the global market reached a record high of 70.9%, up 3.7 percentage points over the same period last year and 5.9 percentage points month on month.

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