Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.
Validity of important patent for OLED technology was upheld.

The Federal Patent Court of Germany has confirmed the validity of the patent (DE112012000831) for organic EL (organic light-emitting diode: OLED (*1)) technology held by Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd. ("SEL"; Head Office: Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan; President and CEO: Shunpei Yamazaki).

This patent is an important patent for light-emitting layers of OLED devices, which covers our original technology called Exciplex-Triplet Energy Transfer (ExTET^®).
Opposition against the patent was filed in June 2018, and the validity of the patent was confirmed in the first instance at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. This decision was contested on appeal at the Federal Patent Court of Germany, and the validity of the patent was disputed again. In view of the claim amendment made at the oral hearing on January 11, 2022, the Federal Patent Court made the final decision to uphold the patent.
The court decision means that the validity of our patent has been confirmed in Germany, which has a huge OLED market. The amended claims of this patent cover the technology that is adopted in light-emitting layers of phosphorescent OLED devices (*2) in the commercially available OLED displays. We have already executed patent license agreements with some OLED display manufacturers and will actively promote our patent license business.

<ExTET technology>
ExTET, which was originally developed by SEL, is the technology enabling higher efficiency, lower driving voltage, and a longer lifetime of OLED displays. In a phosphorescent OLED, the excitation energy of a host material is transferred to a phosphorescent material (guest material) in a light-emitting layer, so that the phosphorescent material emits light. Conventionally, this energy transfer would cause energy loss to adversely affect the emission efficiency, driving voltage, and lifetime. SEL developed an energy transfer mechanism in which an exciplex (*3) formed by combination of an electron-transport material and a hole-transport material is used as a medium for energy transfer to a phosphorescent material, and applied for a patent for this mechanism in 2011. We named this technology Exciplex-Triplet Energy Transfer (ExTET). ExTET successfully cut the energy loss and thereby solved the problems of the emission efficiency, driving voltage, and lifetime of phosphorescent OLEDs at a time. Being essential for OLED displays, ExTET is a fundamental technology used in the green- and yellow-light-emitting layers of commercially available OLED displays, and sometimes also used in red-light-emitting layers.


<Representative related patents for ExTET technology>
A divisional application (German Patent Application No. 112012007311.8) from the above patent was allowed and will be published shortly.
We have already been awarded patents for the ExTET technology in Japan (34 patents including Japanese Patent Nos. 5420692 and 6818178), the United States of America (14 patents including US Patent No. 11038135), Republic of Korea (14 patents including Korean Patent No. 10-2134951), China (11 patents including Chinese Granted Patent Publication No. 106549112), and other countries and are building a competitive patent portfolio in the field of OLED technologies.


[Corporate profile of SEL]

Head office address	398 Hase, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa, Japan
Established date	July 1, 1980
Capital	4,348 million yen including capital reserve
President and CEO	Shunpei Yamazaki
Business	Conducting R&D on the following devices and materials, patenting the developed technologies, and obtaining royalties on the patents. Transistors and semiconductor devices including oxide semiconductors; materials and devices used in liquid crystal displays, EL displays, and batteries; and display devices, integrated circuits, and secondary batteries combining these materials and devices.

*For further details, please visit our website <https://www.sel.co.jp/>.

[Contact information]
The press as well as the companies which are interested in patent license agreements are kindly asked to contact us at the address below.

E-mail: TEL: 046-248-1131


Notes:
(*1) An OLED is a light-emitting device in which a light-emitting layer containing an organic compound as a light-emitting material is interposed between electrodes, and emits light when electricity flows therein. OLED displays manufactured using this technology have been spreading rapidly in recent years and are incorporated in smartphones and TVs. A light-emitting layer is usually composed of a host material and a light-emitting material (guest material).
(*2) As a light-emitting material in a light-emitting layer, phosphorescent materials and fluorescent materials are used. An OLED including a phosphorescent material (phosphorescent OLED) can achieve higher emission efficiency than one including a fluorescent material. Out of the primary colors of light (blue, green, and red) that pixels of displays would exhibit, phosphorescent OLEDs emitting green and red light have already been put to practical use and spread widely.
(*3) An exciplex is an excited dimer consisting of two different associated molecules in an excited state. In ExTET, an electron-transport material molecule and a hole-transport material molecule form an exciplex.

ExTET is a registered trademark of SEL.
　　　　Japanese Registered Trademark No. 5666910
　　　　Registration number: 1 468 558; Designations: China, Germany, Republic of Korea, and the United States of America