UDC Acquires BASF’s OLED IP Portfolio for USD 96 Million…King of Materials Patents

Hyunjoo Kang / jjoo@olednet.com

On 28 June, Universal Display (UDC), dominating the patents within the OLED materials sector, announced that they acquired OLED related patents for approximately USD 96 million.

Most of the portfolio represent patents regarding phosphorescent OLED materials, including over 500 issues and pending patents around the world in 86 patent families. BASF’s OLED portfolio’s average lifetime is 10 years.

UDC is anticipating that this move, that allows them to have over 4,000 issued and pending patents, will help them develop blue emissive systems. As UDC has USD 395.7 million in cash, it should not be a problem financing this IP acquisition cost.

Korean OLED emitting materials companies are also focusing on this move; as the patent competitiveness could be said to sway OLED materials market, IP acquisition is important.

According to UBI Research, with this patent competitiveness UDC led the global OLED emitting materials market in 2015 for two consecutive years. Korean materials companies, including Duksan Neolux, are actively participating in improving their patent competitiveness to respond to UDC’s solid domination of the market.

In April, Professor Jun Yeob Lee (Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University) explained at a forum that UDC’s patents slightly diminished through litigation, the company still has wide claim that includes almost all of phosphorescent materials sector. He emphasized that UDC began to react through acquiring other patents, and that Korean companies should also search for other methods of response.

In 2015, BASF stopped OLED related research development.