Patent-waving Boston U. wins cash from Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft

Boston University has won settlements from 25 companies it sued for infringing "a professor’s patented technology for producing blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs)," a university news site reported yesterday.

The list includes familiar names in the tech industry such as Acer, Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry, Canon, Dell, HP, HTC, LG, Microsoft, Motorola Mobility (owned by Google), NEC, Nokia, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba.

BU's article didn't name the companies, but the news site Xconomy dug up a court document listing them all.

We reported in July that BU was "seeking sales bans on a variety of products sold by Apple, Amazon, and Samsung, claiming the companies infringe on a semiconductor patent one of its professors filed for in 1995." BU made sure to file its lawsuits before the November 2014 expiration of the patent.

Apple's iPhone 5, iPad, and MacBook Air were listed as infringing the patented technology, along with Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire. The Amazon products infringed BU's patent by using LEDs made by Seoul Semiconductor Company in their screens, BU said. Seoul Semiconductor was among the companies that BU won settlements from.

"The settlement, whose dollar amounts have not been disclosed, was negotiated with RPX, a San Francisco firm that acquires patent rights for corporate clients to help them avoid lawsuits," the university article said. "RPX will pay BU a licensing fee for the patents, which will be available to all RPX members. About a dozen firms that aren’t RPX members remain in litigation with the University."

The remaining defendants include lesser-known companies such as Arrow Electronics, Epistar Corp, Everlight Electronics, and Lite-On.

The use of gallium nitride thin films described in the patent "facilitate the production of high-quality blue LEDs, which are used in an array of electronics products, from flat-panel displays on handheld devices to televisions and general lighting," BU said.

The patent, assigned to BU, lists engineering professor Theodore Moustakas as the inventor. Moustakas and BU apparently never developed any products based on the patent, but Moustakas was quoted as saying, "This settlement, as well as the licensing of the patents previously by other blue LED manufacturers, is recognition of the importance of my work in the development of this novel technology."