Image: LG InnoTek

LG InnoTek has completed selling its 114 patents in South Korea related to LED technologies to Chinese company Suzhou LEKIN Semiconductor, TheElec has learned.

The transaction was completed on July 2, according South Korea patent portal Kipris run by the Korean Intellectual Property Office.

LG InnoTek filed to change the owners of the patents in March, data showed.

The deal follows that of LG InnoTek’s selling of its 1,968 patents in the US related to LED to the same Chinese company. In total, LG has handed over 1,977 US patents to LEKIN.

South Korean company had signed a deal with the Chinese company to sell its production equipment and some 10,000 patents related to LED in total, sources have told LG InnoTek earlier.

Out of the 114 patents that were recently handed over, around 100 patents are pending patents that are yet to be registered.

Records show that Suzhou LEKIN Semiconductor was formed on March 2 with a capital of 80 million yuan.

The amount of capital is enough for a partial, advanced payment for the 1,977 US patents. Considering the value of a single US patent, the total payment is expected to be around 80 billion won to 100 billion won, people familiar with the matter said.

LEKIN is registered as a semiconductor, electronic component and machine equipment company. It could build a fab later but is yet to manufacture any products.

LEKIN is owned by various entities, each owning shares ranging from 8% to 17%. This includes CEO Guilin Shuang, who owns a personal stake of 16.37%.

Last year in October, LG InnoTek has made it official that it plans to exit the LED business. The company had already decided a year prior to that that it plans to end the business. However, the pandemic has caused selling of related assets to be delayed.

LG InnoTek is however planning to continue parts of the LED business for automobile lighting.

Earlier this year, the South Korean company also sold its patents related to wireless charging to Irish-based non-practicing entity Scramoge Technology. Scramoge filed patent lawsuits against Samsung, Apple and Google in April. LG InnoTek had exited the wireless charging business in early 2020.

Source : THE ELEC, Korea Electronics Industry Media(http://thelec.net)