Tokyo Court Dismisses Nichia vs. Sumitomo

DURHAM, N.C., Dec. 21 -- Cree Inc. announced that the Tokyo District Court has dismissed the lawsuit filed in April 2000 by Nichia Corp. against Sumitomo Corp., one of Cree's distributors in Japan. Nichia had alleged that certain Cree LED products infringe Japanese Patent No. 2,778,405.
The complaint was directed at Cree's high-brightness LED products and certain of its low-current LED products and had sought an injunction against sale of the products in Japan.
In the decision, handed down yesterday in Tokyo, a three-member panel of judges found that the Cree products did not infringe the patent. Cree, which had previously intervened in the case, argued that its products use a structure fundamentally different from the invention claimed in the patent.