U.S. Federal Court in Michigan Decides Four Motions in Nichia’s Favor in Everlight Patent Litigation; Awards Monetary Sanctions Against Everlight
On December 20, 2013, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted four separate Motions that Nichia brought against Everlight for deficiencies in the discovery provided by Everlight in the ongoing patent infringement litigation involving YAG phosphors to create white LEDs. *1
Concerning Nichia’s “Motion for Sanctions,” the Court found that Everlight had breached a prior Order of the Court. The Court found that documents covered by that Order were produced late, that other documents still had not yet been produced and that there were other deficiencies. As a sanction for this violation, the Court ordered that Everlight pay $5,000 for noncompliance and that Everlight also pay Nichia’s reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs for all four Motions. Nichia is currently calculating the amount of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs for all four Motions that it was awarded.
Also, concerning Nichia’s “Motion to Compel the Production of Samples,” the Court granted all of the relief that was requested and Everlight was ordered to provide to Nichia a complete list of all of its phosphor-based LEDs sold in the U.S. since April 2006 and to produce samples of the LEDs on this list that had not yet been produced. The Court further ordered that Everlight would be fined $5,000/day for every day that the production of samples remains incomplete after January 2, 2014. *2
Nichia considers violations of its intellectual property rights to be a serious matter, and greatly appreciates the Court’s resolution of these Motions.
*1:The litigation is captioned Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd. and Emcore Corp. v. Nichia Corp. and Nichia America Corp., Case No. 4:12-cv-11758 GAD-MKM (E.D. Mich.).
*2:Concerning the other two motions, the Court granted Nichia’s request for follow-up depositions of Everlight and of certain third parties after Everlight produced additional documents, and the Court held that Everlight cannot designate all of the LED samples it produced in the case as “Confidential - Attorneys’ Eyes Only.”
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