In 2012, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal (NSSMC) sued POSCO at the Tokyo District Court alleging patent infringements on technology for grain oriented (GO) electrical steel sheets of NSSMC. In the complaint, Nippon Steel also alleged that POSCO infringed trade secrets about GO electrical steel sheets of NSSMC.
Nippon Steel seeks 100 billion yen (approx. US$1 billion) compensation for damages and injunction against manufacture and sale of POSCO’s GO electrical steel sheets. The lawsuit is still pending in the first instance stage.
On the other hand, Nippon Steel filed another complaint to the State Court of New Jersey in April, 2012, too. This case is still pending, too.
Responding the patent infringement lawsuits, POSCO filed invalidity trials challenging validity of 4 patents of Nippon Steel at the Korean Patent Office (IPT of KIPO). Last week, the IPT of KIPO rendered the decision that all claims of one basic patent among the challenged 4 patents should be invalid because those are obvious over the prior art.
Upon receiving the losing decision, Nippon Steel announced by press release that they will immediately appeal the invalidity decision by the IPT of KIPO to the Patent Court.
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