Samsung Elec faces ex-IP executive in patent litigation in US

[Source: Samsung Electronics Co.]

Samsung Electronics is fighting a former executive who had overseen patent affairs for the Korean tech giant for 10 years in a patent litigation in the U.S.

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Monday, Samsung Electronics and its U.S. affiliate filed for an inter partes review (IPR) on Dec. 10 of last year for nine patents owned by Staten Tekiya LLC. IPR allows third parties to challenge the validity of a patent based on prior art patents and printed publications.

The IPR application follows a lawsuit filed against Samsung Electronics in Texas in November for compensation for damage from Samsung’s intentional infringement on 10 patents. Samsung will file an invalidation trial for the remaining one patent as soon as documents are prepared.

The indemnification lawsuit triggered a controversy as it was reportedly led by Ahn Seung-ho, former head of Samsung Electronics’ IP Center. The plaintiff is Synergy IP, a patent firm he established in June last year. Synergy IP is a delegate of Synergy IP for the litigation.

The patents claimed by the plaintiff are mainly related to ‘Always-On Headwear Recording System’ wireless earphones and voice recognition technologies, which are applied to Samsung’s Galaxy S20 series.

According to court documents obtained by Maeil Business Newspaper, Samsung Electronics said that 'these patents were concepts that had been used before patent registration,' citing evidence of research cases before patent filing. The company also claimed that 'it had never received a patent guarantee from other companies before the lawsuit against Samsung Electronics'.

There is no previous record of Staten’s challenge for patent damages in the Texas court, where the lawsuit was filed. Industry watchers say Staten intentionally filed a claim against Samsung Electronics for patents that are not valid.

Ahn was in charge of high-profile legal battles between Samsung Electronics, Apple, and Huawei for 10 years from 2010.

He joined Samsung Electronics in 1990 after graduating from Seoul National University with a master's degree in metallurgical engineering. He is a material expert who worked as a senior researcher in the packaging development team before moving to the intellectual property response team.

After that, he was in charge of IP response work related to liquid crystal display from 2002 and was appointed as the head of the IP Center in 2010.

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