Matsushita and LG talk truce over display panels

Plasma display panel makers LG Electronics and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. have reached a basic agreement to settle an ongoing dispute over patent infringement. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said on Saturday that the two companies are working out details on a settlement that would require LG to pay royalties to Matsushita and permit both firms to use some of each other’s patents. The agreement will involve both companies dropping all lawsuits and injunction requests in Korea and Japan, the paper said. Neither company was available for comment. Last November, Matsushita filed for an injunction at the Tokyo District Court to suspend sales of LG’s panels, and asked Japanese customs officials to halt LG imports. The request was granted by the customs office later that month. After Matsushita’s filing, LG asked Korean officials to block Matsushita displays. The Commerce Ministry said Panasonic Korea, Matsushita’s Korean subsidiary, would be unable to sell its screens until Seoul’s trade committee made a final ruling on the case, which is expected in November. The LG-Matsushita scuffle is only one of a number of cases in which Korean and Japanese companies are fighting over technological property. Japanese electronics makers filed several lawsuits in Korea last year over patent infringements, beginning in April when Fujitsu sued Samsung SDI over plasma display panels. The two parties reached a cross-licensing agreement in June after several suits and countersuits. Toshiba and Hynix Semiconductor have sued each other over violations of flash memory chip patents, key components in cellphones and digital cameras. by Wohn Dong-hee