CORRECTING and REPLACING Professor Settles with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in LED/LD Patent Dispute

2009-11-24 17:45:13 -

Please replace the release (dated November 5, 2009) with the following corrected version due to multiple revisions.

The corrected release reads.

PROFESSOR SETTLES WITH MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION IN LED/LD PATENT DISPUTE

Professor Gertrude Neumark has reached a settlement with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. regarding her assertion that the company and dozens of other major electronics manufacturers in Asia and Europe violated her patents for

producing light emitting diodes and laser diodes used in products, such as video players that are used for Sony's Blu-ray format, Motorola Razr phones and Hitachi camcorders, backlighting for computers, as well as street lighting and enhanced optical information storage.

Mitsubishi is the latest company to reach a global settlement with Dr.

Neumark, who sued 44 companies at the International Trade Commission (ITC) for patent infringement. Others who have settled include BenQ, Dalien Lumei, Epistar Corp., FOREPI, Guangzhou Hongli, Hitachi, Hugo Optotech, LG, Motorola, Pioneer Corp., Samsung Electro Mechanics, Samsung Electronics, Sanyo Electric, Sewa Electric, Sharp Corp., Shenzhen Unilight, Showa Denko, Sony Corp., and Sony Ericcson. Earlier settlements and licenses were with Nichia Chemical, Koninklijke Philips Electronics, including Philips Lumilid Lighting Co. and Toyoda Gosei Co.

Ltd.

Terms of the Mitsubishi agreement are confidential, according to Neumark's attorney, Albert Jacobs Jr. of Troutman Sanders LLP. However, the aggregate received from her settlements and licenses — which now have been concluded with more than 40 companies — amounts to over $27 million, Jacobs said. About half resulted from the ITC actions, including several companies who settled before being sued there.

"Dr. Neumark made a seminal breakthrough in the understanding of how to treat wide band-gap semiconductors so that they would lead good devices," said Jacobs. "She richly deserves both scientific as well as commercial recognition for her work."

Professor Neumark, who is the sole owner of U.S. Patent Numbers 4,904,618 and 5,252,499 and foreign patents related thereto, is currently Howe Professor Emerita of Materials Science and Engineering at The Fu Foundation School of Engineering at Columbia. She was the first woman to hold a named chair at the Fu Foundation. She conducted ground-breaking research in the late 1980s into the electrical and optical properties of so-called wide band-gap semiconductors. This research has proven pivotal in the development of wide band-gap LEDs and LDs that are now widely used in consumer electronics.

The two U.S. patents and foreign patents she secured in the early 1990s cover methods of producing wide band-gap semiconductors for LEDs and LDs. Such LEDs and LDs have become increasingly popular in a variety of devices as superior lighting sources because of their reduced power consumption, greater reliability, longevity and greater storage capacity.

Professor Neumark was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1982.

Professor Neumark began her research career in private industry, working with Sylvania Research Laboratories in Bayside, N.Y., in the 1950s, and later at Philips Laboratories in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. She joined the faculty at Columbia University as a Professor of Materials Science in 1985. In 2008, she received an Honorary Doctor of Science from Columbia.

Moreover, she has recently been awarded a grant from the Department of Energy to be Co-Principal Investigator at Columbia. She has published over 120 research articles and given more than 25 invited talks since 1980.



Troutman Sanders LLPAlbert L. Jacobs Jr., 212-704-6086 Albert.Jacobs@troutmansanders.com : mailto:Albert.Jacobs@troutmansanders.com