LG is under fire after SK Innovation accused it of patent infringement. SK brought LG Chem, LG Electronics, and LG’s U.S. subsidiary, LG Chen Michigan to court. The lawsuit was made after the latter companies supposedly stole the design of particular electric vehicle batteries and other secondary batteries from SK. The lawsuit also claimed that the three companies made money selling products incorporating these designs.
The lawsuits, according to SK Innovation’s representatives will be filed with the International Trade Commission (ITC) and appropriate U.S. court.
According to SK, LG Electronics “has manufactured battery modules and packs after receiving battery cells from LG Chem.”
Some analysts say that the patent infringement lawsuit may be retaliation from SK innovations against LG after LG Chem filed a similar lawsuit against the former company last April. According to LG Chem’s lawsuit, SK stole confidential business information from them through their former employees.
According to an LG representative, described the case as SK’s “unnecessary lawsuits to water down suits filed against it earlier.” SK, however, denied that the two lawsuits are related.
“We have decided to file lawsuits to protect our core technologies and intellectual properties,” said SK Innovation’s battery business division head, Yoon Ye-sun. SK Innovations is yet to release the details of which of their patents were stolen. They likewise iterated that they are open to dialogues to resolve the issue instead. Otherwise, they will do all possible legal actions to protect their intellectual property rights.
LG Chem, however, denied that no offer of dialogue from SK ever came to their office. It continued that they will only be open to such talks if SK “admits its mistake, makes a sincere apology, vows to make efforts to prevent the recurrence of incidents and comes up with proper measures of compensation.”
LG said that it owns more than 16,685 patents, a number grossly more significant than SK Innovations 1,135 patents. Representatives also stated that LG has invested more than 1 trillion won in R&D projects compared to SK’s 230 billion won.
“If a rival company (SK Innovation) continues to act like this, it will reveal the baselessness of accusations it has made, and we will also consider taking legal actions against its infringement of our patents,” LG Chem reps said in a statement.
