Battle of the OLED displays: Samsung slaps LG Display with lawsuit as the patent wars continue

Samsung is suing LG Display for infringements on its OLED patents on seven accounts, company officials said Monday.

Samsung appears to be right smack in the middle of yet another patent-related lawsuit. If its ongoing legal debacles with Apple weren’t enough, the Korea-based company is now taking LG Display Co. to court to invalidate a number of the company’s patents related to OLED display, company officials said on Monday.

LG Display, like Samsung, is one of the leading manufacturers when it comes to producing OLED displays for electronic devices. LG Display, however, excels in the TV manufacturing business while Samsung’s strength lies in creating smartphone displays.

This new lawsuit from Samsung could be a move to fire back at its rival touch screen maker, which smacked the Galaxy-brand creator with charges back in September. LG claimed that Samsung infringed on its OLED patents and has included products such as Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S lineup and its Galaxy Tab devices in the lawsuit.

Samsung, in turn, wants a total of seven patents from LG to be invalidated, according to Korean news source Yonhap News Agency. Samsung is arguing that LG’s patents are not actually innovative and therefore shouldn’t exist.

As opposed to standard crystal liquid displays, OLED screens do not require a backlight. This allows for thinner, sleeker designs and clearer images, which has prompted TV manufactures such as LG Display to utilize this technology. LG Display is an affiliate of LG Electronics Inc., one of the leading mobile phone manufacturers in the country, coming in second to none other than Samsung Electronics.

As Samsung begins to spark legal activity with LG, its seemingly endless case against Apple continues to progress. Just last week it was reported that a California court has allowed the company to add Apple’s iPhone 5 to its list of products that have infringed on Samsung patents. At the same time, this judge also allowed Apple to add Android’s Jelly Bean operating system and devices such as the Galaxy Note 10.1 and US edition of the Galaxy S3 to its lawsuit.

Only time will tell how these lawsuits play out, but Samsung now has two major competitors ganging up on its Galaxy smartphones and tablets, just in time for the holiday season.