Samsung Display ordered to compensate employee for patents
Ex-VP to appeal for low figure Dispute to continue for a long time
Samsung Display has been ordered by a court in Seoul on Friday to compensate its former employee for their invetion.
The employee, who have requested compensation of 150 billion won, had said they will appeal. The dispute between the pair is expected to continue to the appeals court.
Samsung Display was ordered to pay 57.17 million won and interest to the ex-Samsung Display vice president, whoose last name is Park, for company’s patents related to oxide by the Seoul Central District Court.
Park has filed the suit three years ago, claiming the company didn’t properly compensate him for his invention However, they had asked for a compensation of 150 billion won. The court’s order is only 0.04% of that. Park had claimed Samsung Display made 1.9 trillion won from the patents.
Park’s invention was thin-film transistors (TFT) used in sixth generation liquid crystal display (LCD) panels.
Samsung Display supplied the panels that used the technology to Apple..
The court didn’t announce how much the technology contributed to Samsung Display’s sales nor how it came up with the compensation figure.
Park had argued that the patents will contribute to Samsung Display’s future revenue as well, specifically from quantum dot (QD) organic light emitting diode (OLED) panel that it plans to produce next year. The ex-employee had asked for compensation for future revenue contribution to Samsung from the patents as well.
Park had said he plans to appeal the court’s decision as the compensation is too low.
The patents in question are for TFT array panel, TFT and zinc oxide based sputtering target for the same as well as zinc oxide-based sputtering target, method of preparing the same, and TFT including a barrier layer deposited by the zinc oxide-based sputtering target. They were field while Park worked at Samsung Display between 2009 to 2014.
Samsung Display gave up its patent rights in South Korea for the second and third patents in April. The lawyers for the company said previously that it will no longer use the technologies.
However, TheElec found Samsung Display still owns the patents.