Boston University and Cree Lighting Company won a patent infringement lawsuit against a North Carolina-based engineering corporation last Tuesday, filed over the company’s right to manufacture a certain light-emitting diode, or LED, that BU developed in the early 1990s.
The lawsuit was settled with AXT, a manufacturer of compound semiconductor substrates – hardware for the fiber optics and communication industry – and the company agreed to pay BU and Cree an undisclosed amount.
College Of Engineering professor Theodore Moustakas submitted the patent for “Highly Insulating Monocrystalline Gallium Nitride Thin Films” in the early 1990s after he developed the technology in BU facilities.
BU and Cree filed the lawsuit against AXT in June 2003. As part of the settlement, all parties have dropped all of their claims, according to Ashley Stevens, director of technology transfer at BU’s Community Technology Fund.
“The financial terms were not revealed, but the university is pleased with the outcome,” Stevens said.
Moustakas said he has noticed a shift in BU’s patent practices over the years that may have led in part to the lawsuit.
“Back in the 1990s, only a few patents were submitted,” he said. “Now, with more patents, BU is taking it very seriously. There is now a motivation to license [technology before other competitors].”
The patent is shared exclusively with Cree, a developer and manufacturer of semiconductor materials and devices based on silicon carbide, gallium nitride, silicon and related compounds, according to the company’s website.
The lawsuit claims AXT manufactured LEDs after BU had already submitted the patent.
BU has encountered problems with patent infringements in the past, including a court case in 1997 over a patent on a process for synthesizing gallium nitride against a Japanese technology corporation.
“There was a previous dispute with a patent with the Nichia Corporation,” Stevens said. “It was settled in November of 2002. It was the first time the university has filed a patent infringement lawsuit.”
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