Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. International Trade Commission

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting.

Good start. Now let me verify the key details—ALJ, Commission opinion, the '578 patent, the companion appeals, and post-settlement status.

Now let me check the Federal Circuit docket's current status, oral argument, and the ALJ/Commission reasoning.

Case Overview & Background

Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. International Trade Commission, No. 2025-1791 (Fed. Cir.) is not a conventional infringement suit but an agency appeal: Samsung Display ("SDC"), the Korean active-matrix OLED panel maker and affiliate of Samsung Electronics, petitions for review of the Commission's final determination of no violation in Certain Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode Display Panels and Modules for Mobile Devices, and Components Thereof, Inv. No. 337-TA-1351. SDC is a operating-company complainant, not an NPE/PAE or university — it is the world's largest OLED panel supplier (roughly 42% of the global OLED market by revenue in 2024, per DSCC figures cited in industry coverage), and the litigation is a market-share defense against Chinese panel entrants. The appellee is the Commission itself, represented by its Office of the General Counsel (Cathy Chen argued below and appears on the Federal Circuit docket), and Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. intervened as a respondent/appellee. The nominal respondents were fifteen U.S. aftermarket repair-parts distributors (MobileSentrix, Injured Gadgets, Group Vertical, eTech Parts Plus, Phone LCD Parts, etc.); two were terminated on consent orders and ten went into default, leaving the "BLF Respondents" (Injured Gadgets, Wholesale Gadget Parts, Phone LCD Parts) and BOE as active parties. The Federal Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction over §337 appeals under 28 U.S.C. §1295(a)(6), and reviews the Commission's legal conclusions de novo and factual findings for substantial evidence — the structural reason SDC's arguments on appeal are framed as pure legal error rather than factual disputes.

Accused technology. The investigation targeted imported aftermarket/replacement AMOLED display panels and modules for mobile devices — principally third-party replacement screens for smartphones (industry reporting ties the supply chain to BOE-sourced panels used in Apple iPhone replacement screens) — imported into and sold in the United States by the repair-parts distributors. SDC originally asserted five patents: U.S. Patent No. 9,818,803 and No. 10,854,683 (Diamond Pixel–style RGBG pentile pixel arrangement structures for OLED displays — the '683 patent was dropped entirely during the investigation); U.S. Patent No. 11,594,578, the lead patent on this record, which claims a pixel arrangement structure for an organic light-emitting display device and issued only on February 28, 2023, prompting SDC to amend its complaint and the notice of investigation in March/April 2023 to add claims 1–6, 10, 12, 17, 19, 21–23, 40–47 and 51–52; U.S. Patent No. 7,414,599 (pixel circuit with threshold-voltage compensation and its driving method); and U.S. Patent No. 9,330,593 (cascaded gate-driver/scan-driver circuit stages for an OLED display). By the final initial determination the live claims had narrowed to claims 5 and 21 of the '803 patent, claims 5, 10, 17, 40–41 and 47 of the '578 patent, claims 2–3, 13 and 15–16 of the '599 patent, and claim 6 of the '593 patent. Critically, the ALJ found that at least one representative accused product infringed the '803, '578 and '599 claims and that the claims were not shown invalid — but also found no violation of §337 because SDC failed the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement, and separately found no violation as to the '593 patent.

Procedural posture and significance. SDC filed its complaint on December 28, 2022 (supplemented January 17, 2023); the Commission instituted on February 3, 2023 (88 Fed. Reg. 7463), granted BOE's unopposed motion to intervene on March 22, 2023, and named the Office of Unfair Import Investigations as a party. The final ID issued in November 2024. SDC petitioned for review on November 29, 2024, challenging the '803 technical prong and the economic prong; the Commission reviewed in part (90 Fed. Reg. 8034, Jan. 23, 2025) and then issued a final determination of no violation and termination of the investigation in its entirety (notice published March 25, 2025). SDC appealed; the appeal was docketed as No. 25-1791 on May 20, 2025. On July 14, 2025, the court ordered that Nos. 25-1426, 25-1517 and 25-1791 be treated as companion cases and assigned to the same merits panel — 25-1426 is the consolidated PTAB appeal by Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Semiconductor Display Technology and others challenging the Board's upholding of the '599 patent (IPR2023-00941), and 25-1517 is the parallel IPR appeal — so the validity and §337 threads of the Samsung

I'll research this systematically, starting with the ITC investigation and the Federal Circuit appeal.

I have the ITC-side timeline. Now let me dig into the PTAB proceedings, the Federal Circuit appeal mechanics, and the effect of the November 2025 settlement.

Let me pull the full Federal Circuit docket for 25-1791 and check for any 2026 decision.

I'll research press coverage of this ITC dispute and the Federal Circuit appeal.

What the press reported

The settlement was broken by Korean outlets and then picked up internationally within 48 hours. Yonhap reported on 2025‑11‑19 that Samsung Display had reached a settlement with BOE "ending a nearly three-year dispute in the South Korean company's favor," and that the ITC — which had been due to issue a final determination that week — announced it was suspending the case; the agency attributed the outcome to unidentified industry sources and said the withdrawal terms were not disclosed. TechNode followed on 2025‑11‑21, reporting that the two companies "have resolved several patent and trade secret infringement cases in both the US and China," and that BOE agreed to pay Samsung Display patent licensing fees — a claim it attributes to Yonhap rather than to either party. TechCrunch reported on 2025‑11‑20 that a Samsung Display spokesperson confirmed the accord, quoting the company that "fair technological competition is essential for the advancement of the display industry" and that the parties "plan to withdraw all ongoing legal actions," while explicitly noting that Samsung Display declined to comment on reports that BOE would pay royalties and that the ITC declined to comment. SamMobile framed it on 2025‑11‑19 as an "out-of-court settlement" reached "[j]ust days ahead of the court's final verdict," speculating that BOE "will now be able to ship its OLED panels" to the U.S. and calling the result "a win-win situation for both firms." Korean business press was less neutral: BusinessKorea headlined the story "Samsung Display Wins Patent Battle Against China's BOE," and The Korea Herald reported on 2025‑11‑19 that "industry officials widely believe" the deal includes BOE paying royalties — adding the detail that the two firms had filed six U.S. IP cases in 2025 alone (five by Samsung Display, one by BOE).

Nobody reported actual money. Consistent with § 337 practice, the ITC proceeding offers exclusion orders, not damages, so coverage contains no damages figure; the royalty is reported only as inference. The number that dominated coverage instead was 14 years and eight months — the term of a limited exclusion order that Yonhap reported on 2025‑08‑13 had been recommended in a July 11 preliminary ruling, describing Samsung Display as having "virtually won" and quoting an industry official saying finished products containing BOE panels (including iPhones) were not covered. The Korea Herald paired that ruling with market data — Omdia's Q1 2025 iPhone OLED shipment shares (Samsung 49%, LG ~28%, BOE ~19%), an estimate that BOE held roughly 10% of the U.S. smartphone OLED market, and an estimate that BOE supplied 20–30% of iPhone OLED panels, or 20–30 million units annually — plus on-the-record analyst predictions that Samsung and LG Display would absorb the volume (Kang Min‑koo of IBK Securities; Kwon Min‑gyu of SK Securities; Nam Sang‑uk of KIET). That is analyst commentary, not record fact, and outlets labeled it as such.

Where accounts diverge — and where they drift from the record

Coverage of this dispute largely conflates two separate ITC investigations, and that matters for the '578 patent appeal. The March 19, 2025 final determination in Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351 — the patent case, and the direct subject of Fed. Cir. No. 25‑1791 — was a no-violation outcome terminating the investigation, as Communications Daily reported on 2025‑03‑24, noting the ALJ's November 2024 finding that complainant Samsung had "failed to show the existence of a domestic industry, among other reasons." By contrast, TechCrunch reported that "[i]n March 2025, the ITC ruled that BOE had infringed three of Samsung Display's OLED patents," and SamMobile said the ITC "banned import of BOE panels in the US for a period of 14 years and 8 months" — statements that elide the infringement/no-violation distinction and the distinction between the patent and trade-secret cases. Chinese legal commentary pushes back harder on the 14‑year‑8‑month figure: a Shanghai Patent & Trademark Law Office analysis published via Lexology (dated 2026‑02‑27) states that in Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1378 the July 11 initial determination recommended a limited exclusion order without fixing a specific term, that the "14 years and 8 months" number was derived by Korean media from Samsung's technology-development timeline rather than from the order, and that the final determination was then due November 17, 2025. That is a genuine conflict with the Yonhap/Korea Herald/BusinessKorea accounts, and I could not resolve it from primary documents in this session. Parties themselves talked past the record: BOE posted its own narrative on BOE America's site calling the March 2025 ruling "a significant milestone in maintaining fair competition" and characterizing Samsung Display's campaign as "an attempt to leverage its market position to reduce competition," and after the settlement BOE used a Shenzhen Stock Exchange investor Q&A to dispute "reports based on third-party speculation" about the settlement's terms — a response that followed Korean and Chinese reports of a multi-billion-RMB payment, which BOE did not confirm.

The gap in the coverage

There is a clear hole in the press record where this case actually lives. I found no Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Law360, IPWatchdog, Patently‑O or Ars Technica reporting on the Federal Circuit appeal itself, and nothing tying the November 2025 settlement to the disposition of No. 25‑1791 or to the '578 patent specifically. The closest thing to appeal coverage is a Chinese display-industry trade item, FPDisplay, which reported on 2025‑07‑09 — citing industry sources — that Samsung Display, dissatisfied with the mid-March final determination, had filed its CAFC appeal in mid-May 2025 and had not obtained an import ban because the domestic-industry requirement was unmet. I also was unable to retrieve and verify, in this session, the July 2025 consumer-tech items listed in the source brief (MacRumors, AppleInsider, PhoneArena, The Mac Observer) or the GSMArena and Yahoo syndications, so I am not characterizing their contents; the surviving versions I could verify of that July reporting cycle are the Yonhap and Korea Herald pieces above. Treat the "Samsung won / BOE will pay royalties / 15-year ban" formulation that dominates aggregation as industry inference layered onto a suspended investigation, not as anything either party or the Commission has stated on the record in No. 25‑1791.

Sources

• Three Years of Strategic Confrontation Conclude: Implications of the BOE–Samsung OLED Patent Dispute
• 三星显示与中国京东方侵权纠纷落幕 | 韩联社
• Three Years of Strategic Confrontation Conclude: Implications of the BOE-Samsung OLED Patent Dispute - Register now for your free, tailored, daily legal newsfeed service.
• Samsung Display, China's BOE settle OLED patent and trade secret lawsuits | TechCrunch
• Samsung Display wins key OLED fight as BOE settles ahead of US ruling
• Samsung Display Wins Patent Battle Against China's BOE - Samsung Display Wins Patent Battle Against China's BOE
• Samsung Display Puts End to 3-Year 'OLED Technology Dispute' with China's BOE in Victory - Samsung Display Puts End to 3-Year 'OLED Technology Dispute' with China's BOE in Victory
• 和解近一年，京东方与三星显示一场专利无效诉讼仍在最高法开庭_产业_资讯_IPRdaily-全球知识产权综合信息服务提供商
• 三年角力终落幕：京东方三星OLED专利争端启示 - Register now for your free, tailored, daily legal newsfeed service.
• UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION Washington, D.C.
• ITC Ends Investigation on Cellphone Screens After Finding No Section 337 Violation
• 美国国际贸易委员会拒绝向三星显示器授予针对京东方的进口禁令

I'll research this appeal and the underlying ITC investigation to identify counsel of record for Samsung Display.

Let me pull the full docket sheet and identify the attorneys.

Let me pull the docket directly and verify each attorney's firm and role.

Scope and sourcing note

I ran a limited search pass and hit my step limit before I could independently verify every firm affiliation from firm-directory pages. Below, the roster and roles are grounded in the Federal Circuit docket (CourtListener/RECAP mirror of the CAFC docket, No. 25‑1791); firm affiliations marked ✓ are directly sourced, and those marked ⚠ are stated from the entry‑of‑appearance signature block and my background knowledge of Covington's ITC group but were not re‑confirmed against cov.com in this session.

Procedural frame (so the counsel list makes sense)

• Appeal from the Commission's March 19, 2025 final determination finding no violation of § 337 in Certain Active Matrix OLED Display Panels and Modules for Mobile Devices, Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351 (Remand) — the Commission affirmed the ALJ's finding that Samsung Display failed the economic prong of the domestic industry requirement (90 FR 8034; final determination at 90 FR, Mar. 25, 2025).
• Appeal docketed May 14, 2025; by order of July 14, 2025 (Doc. 19) it was treated as a companion case with Nos. 25‑1426 and 25‑1517 and assigned to the same merits panel.
• Briefing completed: ITC response brief Dec. 2, 2025; Samsung Display reply brief Jan. 12, 2026; appendix Feb. 3, 2026. Argument scheduling/conflict notices in Apr. 2026, and oral argument audio is posted on the Federal Circuit's site for 2025‑1791 — i.e., argument has likely been held and the case awaits decision. I cannot confirm the exact argument date or any Rule 36/opinion outcome from what I retrieved.

Counsel of record for Plaintiff‑Appellant Samsung Display Co., Ltd.

All counsel of record appear in a single Entry of Appearance filed May 23, 2025 (docket [1091968], initially flagged non‑compliant) and re‑filed in corrected form Aug. 15, 2025 ([1108770], [1108771]). No separate local counsel, and no in‑house attorney, appears on the public Federal Circuit docket.

Bottom line: Samsung Display has no local counsel and no in‑house counsel of record at the Federal Circuit; the entire roster is Covington & Burling LLP (Washington, DC), the same firm that represented SDC as complainant in the underlying ITC investigation. Rainey is the functional lead/arguer; Austin is the operative day‑to‑day filer.

Trial‑level / ITC counsel (same team, for continuity)

• Covington & Burling LLP is identified as SDC's retained counsel in Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351 in a PTAB submission that catalogues the parties' 2023 case work ("retained by plaintiff Samsung Display Company Ltd. — retained by counsel Covington and Burling LLP").
• Heng Gong — now a partner at Blue Peak Law Group; formerly special counsel at Covington & Burling — publicly lists representation of Samsung Display in Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351 among his representative matters. He does not appear on the Federal Circuit docket.

Other parties' counsel (context)

• Appellee ITC: Cathy Chen, Office of the General Counsel, U.S. International Trade Commission, Washington, DC — signed the corrected confidential response brief ([1131552], Dec. 2, 2025). The Commission appears through its own OGC, not DOJ.
• Intervenor Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd.: dockets.justia.com lists BOE as intervenor in No. 25‑1791, but I could not identify BOE's appellate counsel from the sources retrieved. Given your summary's note of the Nov. 2025 BOE settlement, counsel for the intervenor may have changed or withdrawn — worth checking the docket for a withdrawal of appearance or a motion to dismiss the intervenor.

Caveats / things to verify before filing or relying on this

1. No sealed‑filing issue: the entry of appearance and briefs are public, so counsel identity is not obscured by sealing — but the confidential response brief and confidential appendix are sealed.
2. Firm attribution for Sobin, Bieluch, Cho, Long, and Rainey rests on the EOA signature block and Covington's known ITC bench rather than a verified firm‑page citation. Confirm at cov.com/professionals before publishing.
3. Argument status: I saw oral‑argument conflict notices (Apr. 2026), a Form 32 amended response (Doc. 49, Apr. 29, 2026), and posted argument audio, but I did not retrieve the argument date or any merits disposition. If a decision issued after Aug. 2026, the case‑status field ("pending") should be updated.
4. Post‑settlement appearances: if the BOE settlement moots or narrows the appeal, expect motions affecting the intervenor's counsel and possibly amended entries of appearance for Samsung Display.

I'll research this appeal and the counsel involved.

Let me pull the docket and identify all counsel appearances.

Let me confirm the ITC's counsel lineup and the BOE withdrawal from the docket.

Short answer

In Fed. Cir. No. 25‑1791 the only defendant‑side party still of record is the U.S. International Trade Commission itself (the appellee). The ITC is represented by its own Office of General Counsel — government lawyers, not outside counsel — and the docket shows exactly two counsel of record for the ITC. The one private party that had appeared on the defense side, Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd., intervened in May 2025 and then withdrew from the appeal in November 2025, so its Orrick team is no longer counsel of record here.

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Counsel of record for Appellee ITC

Source for both: Entry of Appearance for Cathy Chen and Michelle W. Klancnik as counsel for Appellee ITC, filed May 28, 2025, Dkt. No. 4 in No. 25‑1791 (CourtListener docket 70318452); Cathy Chen is the filer of the ITC's corrected confidential response brief at Dkt. No. 35 (Dec. 2, 2025).

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The withdrawn defense-side party (for completeness)

• Mianyang BOE Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. — intervened on May 29, 2025 (motion for leave to intervene, Dkt. 6–8), represented by Melanie L. Bostwick, Sten A. Jensen, Richard Martinelli, Bas de Blank, Xiang Wang, Jonas Q. Wang and Elise M. Baranouski of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (Bostwick is the well‑known ITC/PTAB practice leader in Orrick's Washington, DC and Irvine offices; the team also handled BOE's parallel PTAB IPRs, e.g. Mianyang BOE v. Samsung Display, IPR2023‑00987, ‑00941, ‑01075). BOE then moved to withdraw as a party (Dkt. 28), which the court granted with a revised official caption (Dkt. 29, November 2025) — consistent with the reported Nov. 2025 Samsung Display–BOE settlement. If that settlement had not occurred, BOE's Orrick team would have been the principal private defense-side counsel alongside the ITC.
• The BLF Respondents below (Injured Gadgets, Wholesale Gadget Parts, Phone LCD Parts) and the Office of Unfair Import Investigations were parties to Inv. No. 337‑TA‑1351 but did not appear in the Federal Circuit appeal.

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Caveats / what I could not verify

• No private law firm represents the ITC here. The Commission appears through its own General Counsel under 19 U.S.C. § 1337(c); DOJ/Solicitor General counsel does not appear on the ITC's briefs in 337 appeals.
• Other OGC staff attorneys frequently appear in the signature block of the ITC's brief without filing separate entries of appearance (in other appeals the Commission's briefs have listed Michael Liberman, Houda Morad, Sidney A. Rosenzweig, Benjamin S. Richards). I could not confirm the full signature block of the ITC's brief in No. 25‑1791, so the table above reflects counsel of record per the entry of appearance, not necessarily every attorney who worked on the brief.
• I could not confirm who argued for the ITC at oral argument. The Federal Circuit's oral-argument archive does list audio for "2025‑1791: Samsung Display Co., Ltd. v. ITC" (posted in the 2026 argument cycle), but the recording/transcript does not by itself identify arguing counsel in the sources I could access.
• No filings appear to be sealed as to the identity of counsel; the confidentiality designations in this appeal (e.g., the confidential response brief and confidential appendix) go to business information, not attorney appearances.
• For context on the merits posture: No. 25‑1791 was designated a companion case with Nos. 25‑1426 and 25‑1517 and assigned to the same merits panel (order entered July 14, 2025, Dkt. 19) — those are BOE/China Star/Tianma/Visionox appeals from the PTAB's decisions on Samsung Display's OLED patents, which have their own separate counsel (e.g., Stephen Smith's team in No. 26‑1092).