Samsung scores OLED patent win but court skirts US sales ban on infringing iPhones
Apple may find itself in double regulatory trouble with its third-largest iPhone display supplier, BOE. It was approved for producing both iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 displays, as well as providing the bulk of panels for the upcoming iPhone SE 4.
First, it was the Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party John Moolenaar (R-MI), who asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to note how China subsidizes its display producers as a national security concern.
His letter targets BOE, in particular, saying that the Chinese government "engages in aggressive state-sponsored subsidization of the two primary display technologies: liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display," elbowing out the competition to achieve a dominant status. The argumentation goes against BOE as a "military and defense supplier" in its origins, and Moolenaar asked the Pentagon chief to consider such Chinese display companies as a national security threat and restrict them by an inclusion in the department's growing 1260h blacklist of companies with ties to the PLO.
As if that wasn't enough, Samsung's OLED patent dispute with BOE in the U.S. ITC has now resulted in a preliminary infringement verdict, reports The Elec (translated), which doesn't bode well for BOE in the future:
Since infringement has been acknowledged for all four ITC-issued patents, Samsung Display will likely have an advantageous position in future disputes. Since the five patents at issue in the patent infringement lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas Federal Court are the same, this ITC preliminary decision is bound to have an impact.
Patent industry official, November, '24
The ITC stopped short of recommending a US sales ban on products with BOE displays as Samsung had requested, so Apple's iPhones are safe for now, but it remains to be seen if that will be the case with Samsung's other patent infringement court proceedings.
While BOE started small as an iPhone display supplier, it has grown tremendously since, providing panels for most major phone makers, including Samsung, and developing dual-stack OLED display tech like the one in the iPad Pro 2024, as well as mastering the next-gen OLED production methods for larger screens, hoping to enter Apple's supply chain for devices with screens larger than the iPhone's, too.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: