Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) And Luxell Technologies Are In Dispute

"Luxell has complied with all requirements under the license agreement and we were encouraged by our initial progress with the incorporation of the Black Layer into LEPs," says Luxell's president/CEO, Brian Kennedy. "We are now preparing to work directly with other LEP manufacturers."

However, Luxell admits to "schedule setbacks" for its contrast enhancement technology.

"These issues, coupled with the delays relating to complex challenges in manufacturing small molecule organic light emitting diode (SMOLED) and light emitting polymer (LEP) OLED displays, are having an overall impact on Luxell's Black Layer licensing programme," says a press release dated September 12, 2002.

The same release reports implementation problems at Tohoku Pioneer. The Japanese company has "unforeseen compatibility issues" with using the first generation of Black Layer in its SMOLED formulation. Tohoku Pioneer and Luxell are researching a second generation Black Layer for use in SMOLED production. Results from this work are expected in the next six months.

At CDT, "there have been difficulties and delays in implementing Black Layer in CDT's current LEP product plan." Luxell says it is confident that "the issues are resolvable". However, CDT did not make its $1mn license instalment due on August 31, 2002.

Luxell's chief financial officer, Roman Kocur, claims: "In essence, CDT tried to materially change the business terms of the original license agreement. We believe the terms of the agreement are clear, and we see no commercial or technical basis to make changes."

CDT says that Luxell claimed Black Layer was compatible with CDT's technology and was ready to be licensed to CDT's display manufacturing licensees for commercial production development. CDT made an initial payment of $1mn under the terms of the license.

CDT says it has experienced difficulties similar to Tohoku Pioneer's, including an inability to establish the manufacturability of LEP displays with Black Layer for mass production. Considerable technical resources have been applied to try to replicate the use of Black Layer technology in the manufacture of LEP displays without success, says CDT.

The LEP company has offered to enter into joint development to attempt to resolve the identified shortcomings and to suspend the contract pending resolution. CDT's CEO David Fyfe reports that this offer was refused. Luxell terminated the licence on October 10, 2002, and intends to pursue the matter in court.

KLA-Tencor has settled a patent infringement suit filed against Therma-Wave subsidiary Sensys Instruments. Therma-Wave and Sensys have agreed not to sell products having a design similar to that which was accused of infringing the patent until the protection expires.

KLA-Tencor for its part has agreed not to sue Sensys or Therma-Wave for allegations of infringement of certain claims of the US patent by Therma-Wave or Sensys products so long as they conform to the specifications of a redesigned system specified in the settlement agreement. The action dates from December 2001. KLA alleged that certain Sensys products infringed US patent No.5,747,813.

NEC has extended its license agreement for MoSys' one-transistor SRAM (1T-SRAM) memory technology for additional projects in embedded DRAM and logic processes with geometries down to 90nm. NEC already uses the technology in the Nintendo GameCube, which includes 192Mbits of very high performance, low-latency 1T-SRAM as main system memory.