Samsung Display and China’s BOE Technology, a supplier of OLED displays used in Apple devices, have agreed to settle a patent lawsuit concerning OLED technology.
“The two companies have agreed that fair technological competition is essential for the advancement of the display industry,” and have therefore decided to withdraw all pending lawsuits, a spokesperson at Samsung Display confirmed to TechCrunch. “We [also] plan to withdraw all ongoing legal actions as part of this agreement.”
Samsung Display declined to comment on reports that BOE may pay patent royalties to the Korean hardware giant as part of the settlement. BOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The settlement lays to bed a drawn out, three-year fight between Samsung’s display division and BOE, both of whom supply display panels used in Apple’s iPhones. Samsung in December 2022 filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging that BOE had infringed its OLED patents, and then filed another case in October 2023, accusing the Chinese company of stealing trade secrets by poaching employees to access confidential OLED manufacturing processes and technologies.
In March 2025, the ITC ruled that BOE had infringed three of Samsung Display’s OLED patents. On the trade secret side, in a preliminary ruling handed down in July, the ITC found that BOE had misappropriated Samsung Display’s OLED trade secrets, and recommended banning the Chinese company from exporting OLED panels to the U.S. for nearly 15 years.
Now, the companies appear to have asked the ITC to end its investigation.
The settlement comes as major tech companies try to reduce their reliance on Chinese manufacturers for components used in their devices. A U.S. export ban would have certainly been terrible news for BOE, which is one of the world’s largest suppliers of LCD and OLED display panels, behind Samsung and LG.
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Samsung’s case underscored growing concern over the theft of intellectual property. In July 2024, a South Korean court sentenced a former Samsung Display engineer to six years in prison for leaking OLED technology worth about $24.5 million to China. And last month, South Korean police opened an investigation after two LG Display employees were suspected of leaking proprietary display technologies to a Chinese firm.
