Concerning the Blue LED patent, Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd. ("Toyoda Gosei") (President: Mr. Takashi Matsuura) has won the suit, in which Toyoda Gosei demanded the annulment of the JPO's trial decision affirming the validity of the following patent that Nichia Corporation owns, final and conclusive in favor of Toyoda Gosei as follows:

With respect to the subject patent, Toyoda Gosei brought a suit before Tokyo High Court against the "Trial Decision Rejecting the Demand for Invalidation of Patent" rendered by the Japanese Patent Office on June 16, 2000.

Tokyo High Court (Judge Shinohara as Presiding Judge) rendered the judgment on June 13, 2001 to the effect that the JPO's Trial Decision rejecting the demand for invalidation of patent (affirming the validity of patent) is annulled (substantially invalidating the patent) and Nichia Corporation appealed to the Supreme Court against the judgment, and then Petty Bench No. 2 of the Supreme Court (Judge Kajitani as Presiding Judge) rejected the appeal on November 9, 2001.

Thereby, the judicial judgment substantially invalidating Nichia Corporation's patent became final and conclusive for the first time.

NOTE
1. Subject Patent
Patent No. 2780691: A light emitting device having an n-type nitride semiconductor layer comprising InGaN of a layer in contact with the first face of active layer of a quantum well structure, and a p-type nitride semiconductor layer comprising AlGaN of a layer in contact with the second face of said active layer, said light emitting device emits light of energy lower than the primary bandgap energy of nitride semiconductor constituting the active layer.
2. Judgment of Tokyo High Court
The subject invention corresponds to the invention stated in the cited reference with respect to the structure except for the part of "emits light of energy lower than the primary bandgap energy of nitride semiconductor constituting the active layer," and since the structure of said part is based on the operation / working effect that is considered to take effect by using the structure corresponding to the invention stated in the cited reference, the subject invention is substantially identical with the invention stated in the cited reference.