Photo/Shetuwang

Mar. 30 (NBD) -- U.S.-based Ultravision Technologies, LLC, a major global light-emitting diode (LED) manufacturer, accused 20 more LED producers of patent infringement on Tuesday.

According to a statement released by the US International Trade Commission (USITC), a list of 11 Chinese companies were alledged to have violated Section 337 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 and Ultravision Technologies requested USITC to issue the general exclusion order and restraining order. 

The products to be investigated are certain light engines and components thereof. 

Chinese LED companies involved in this accusation included Absen Optoelectronic Co., Ltd. ("Absen"), Shenzhen AOTO Electronics Co., Ltd. ("AOTO"), Ledman Optoelectronic Co., Ltd. ("Ledman"), Shenzhen Liantronics Co. Ltd, Shanghai Sansi Electronic Engineering Co., Ltd., Unilumin Group Co., Ltd. ("Unilumin") and Leyard Optoelectronics Co., ("Leyard").

China's LED-related stocks were hit hard on this allegation Thursday. San'an Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., one of China's leading LED providers, plummeted to almost its daily trading limit. In addition, the LED lighting solution provider Unilumin saw a plunge of over 5 percent for its shares.

In respond to the complaint, Unilumin said that it has established a working group and will deal with this issue properly together with industry associations and other companies in LED industry. 

AOTO also made an announcement, claiming that the company fully respects and will not infringe the intellectual property rights (IPR) owned by other enterprises but will also protect its own rights by legal ways. It also noted that the sales revenue gained from the U.S. market accounted for no more than 2 percent of the total revenue last year.

Besides, a member from office of secretariat of the board at Ledman told NBD that the company didn't receive any official documents about the lawsuit, but it would closely follow the progress of the issue. The sales revenue from the U.S. market only took up about 20 percent of the total in 2016 and all the export products of Ledman own IPRs.

Both Leyard and Absen said they could not respond to the issue, for the absence of secretary and securities affairs representative. 

But Absen claimed on Monday that the protectionist measures taken by the U. S. would finally damage the interests of American consumers. Absen's products are sold across the world so the U.S. market is only one part of the whole market. 

The company have considered the influence of those measures and made preparations for it, Absen added.

The Section 337 investigations are one of the methods that the U.S. adopted frequently to weaken the competiveness of other countries, Wang Fei, a LED industry analyst at the market research institution TrendForce said to NBD. 

With the low cost for making a complaint, such cases occur in LED industry every one or two years, Wang explained.

The new allegation was regarded as the speculation during the current trade war between China and the U.S. by LED Display and Application Branch Association of China Optical and Optoelectronic Industry Association.

But the investigation won't affect the operation and performance of Chinese related companies, the association pointed out. 

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn