Penn State Sues Samsung for Patent Infringement by Galaxy Smartphones

by: Robert Wagner, intellectual property attorney at Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C. (Robert Wagner on G+)

It’s not just Apple that is suing Samsung in the smart phone arena. Last Friday, the Penn State Research Foundation (the technology transfer office for Penn State) sued Samsung in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Case No. 4:14-cv-00124, for allegedly infringing the Foundation’s US Patent No. 6,720,572, entitled “Organic Light Emitters with Improved Carrier Injection.”

In the complaint, the Foundation contends that at least Samsung’s Galaxy SIII and Galaxy S4 products infringe the ‘572 Patent. The Foundation also contends that Samsung willfully infringed the ‘572 Patent because it knew of the patent at least as early as May 12, 2010, when it was referenced by the USPTO in a office action involving one of Samsung’s patent applications.

The ‘572 Patent relates to:

A light emitting device with improved carrier injection. The device has a layer of organic light emitting material and a layer of organic semiconductor material that are interposed between first and second contact layers. A carrier transport layer, may optionally be included between the semiconductor and light emitting layers. When used as a diode, the first and second contacts are functionally the anode and cathode. The device can also be a field effect transistor device by adding a gate contact and a gate dielectric. The first and second contacts then additionally have the function of source and drain, depending on whether the organic semiconductor material is a p-type or an n-type. Preferably, the organic semiconductor is formed with pentacene.

As the case was just filed, there has been little activity in it. We will monitor this case as it progresses.