Battle of the OLED displays: Samsung slaps LG Display with lawsuit as the patent wars continue

Samsung is suing LG Display for infringements on its OLED patents on seven accounts, company officials said Monday.

Samsung appears to be right smack in the middle of yet another patent-related lawsuit. If its ongoing legal debacles with Apple weren’t enough, the Korea-based company is now taking LG Display Co. to court to invalidate a number of the company’s patents related to OLED display, company officials said on Monday.

LG Display, like Samsung, is one of the leading manufacturers when it comes to producing OLED displays for electronic devices. LG Display, however, excels in the TV manufacturing business while Samsung’s strength lies in creating smartphone displays.

This new lawsuit from Samsung could be a move to fire back at its rival touch screen maker, which smacked the Galaxy-brand creator with charges back in September. LG claimed that Samsung infringed on its OLED patents and has included products such as Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S lineup and its Galaxy Tab devices in the lawsuit.

Samsung, in turn, wants a total of seven patents from LG to be invalidated, according to Korean news source Yonhap News Agency. Samsung is arguing that LG’s patents are not actually innovative and therefore shouldn’t exist.

As opposed to standard crystal liquid displays, OLED screens do not require a backlight. This allows for thinner, sleeker designs and clearer images, which has prompted TV manufactures such as LG Display to utilize this technology. LG Display is an affiliate of LG Electronics Inc., one of the leading mobile phone manufacturers in the country, coming in second to none other than Samsung Electronics.

As Samsung begins to spark legal activity with LG, its seemingly endless case against Apple continues to progress. Just last week it was reported that a California court has allowed the company to add Apple’s iPhone 5 to its list of products that have infringed on Samsung patents. At the same time, this judge also allowed Apple to add Android’s Jelly Bean operating system and devices such as the Galaxy Note 10.1 and US edition of the Galaxy S3 to its lawsuit.

Only time will tell how these lawsuits play out, but Samsung now has two major competitors ganging up on its Galaxy smartphones and tablets, just in time for the holiday season. 

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Nokia photo sensor patent looks to take the hump out of Pureview Cameras

New sensor technology could put a larger cameras into smaller packages

Nokia may have the best smartphone camera system around with its 41 megapixel Pureview camera. We are all hoping to see similar Pureview technology (but on a smaller scale) with the Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 devices. While the Pureview cameras have turned heads, what Nokia has up it's sleeve should take the Nokia cameras to a new level and eliminate that pesky hump in the process.

Nokia has filed a patent application for the sensing of photons utilizing graphene technology. Graphene is a two-dimensional material made of a single atomic layer of carbon layers. It allows photo sensors to be smaller than the current crop of CMOS sensor and capture light photons across a broad spectrum of frequencies of visible light. Combined with the transparency of the graphene layers, this should make the graphene sensors better low-light performers than what we have today.

In a nutshell, we are looking at potentially a smaller, thinner, better low-light performing photo sensor that may give us the 41 megapixel Pureview camera without the hump.

Graphene has been around for some time and is found in a wide range of applications ranging from solar cells to sensors capable of detecting a single molecules of toxic gases. The challenge is adapting the sensitivity of the graphene layers for photographic purposes.

The patent application calls for a image sensor comprised of one or more photo sensing layers of graphene. The graphene will absorb photons effectively in visible, infrared and ultraviolet frequencies. The improvement in low light performance rests with the transparency of the graphene layers. Only 2.3% of passing light is absorbed by the graphene layers, filtering light more evenly across the light spectrum.

We should see lower manufacturing costs, due to the lower materials cost, and an overall smaller sensor with the graphene. While the technology is promising there are still a lot of questions to be answered as this new photon sensing technology emerges. What type megapixel count are we looking at?

While Nokia seems to be getting a handle on things with the patent filing, I don't think we'll see graphene sensors any time soon. Still the prospect of a smaller, thinner high resolution sensor with better low light performance does sound very appealing.  We could see that 41 megapixel camera easily fitted inside the form factor of the Lumia 9xx phones.  Now if we could just get a mechanical shutter....

If you're feeling adventurous, you can find Nokia's patent filing here at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Source: unwiredview; Thanks, Miguel, for the tip!

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Apple seeks to have 8 Samsung smartphones banned in wake of patent verdict

Remember when the verdict came down for the Apple v. Samsung case and Phil was reasonably skeptical about this all being the last word? Yeah, well it wasn't the last word and likely won't be for some time yet. Apple has now filed new documentation regarding the devices they'll be seeking bans for in the U.S. and you'll find some familiar names there:

Galaxy S 4GGalaxy S2 AT&TGalaxy S2 SkyrocketGalaxy S2 T-MobileGalaxy S2 Epic 4GGalaxy S ShowcaseDroid ChargeGalaxy Prevail

Looking at the list it's easy to say they're all old devices and people have now moved on but realistically, a lot of the devices are still being sold today and making money for Samsung. Noticeably absent though, is the Galaxy Nexus which as most know runs stock Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Most of Apple's claims assert infringement of Apple's design patents and trade dress. If you're looking for the full break down of how each device Apple claims is in violation, you'll find it below.

Source: The Verge

"Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada. Chris is fluent in all mobile languages and loves anything with a power button."

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