Canon SED fraud case dismissed

Nano-Proprietary's fraud lawsuit against Canon in a Texas court has been dismissed, with a jury saying no damages had been sustained, since no products have actually shipped. Nano-Proprietary holds patents to some of the technology behind SED, and licensed it to Canon in 1999. Canon then brought Toshiba in as a manufacturing partner, and Nano filed suit. Now that all claims against Canon USA have been dropped, Canon doesn't have to pay any additional damages to Nano beyond the price of the original license -- but because the original SED patent licensing agreements with Canon have also been scrapped, rights to build the next-generation television have to be negotiated all over again.

[Via TG Daily]

[Alex @ May 7th 2007 4:32PM]

I hope this means we will actually see SED TVs in the near future. This should be good news.

[Rick Lyon @ May 7th 2007 4:50PM]

I don't think so, because it seems Canon did not want to pay the fees. So why would anyone else? Let's just move on with OLED, LED and lasers, etc.

[Vagrant @ May 7th 2007 5:06PM]

Chiotaikai!

Anyways, I think Canon not moving forward, after licensing it, speaks for itself.

[Philip S @ May 7th 2007 5:43PM]

It's sad but I doubt we ever see SED at this point.

[Peter @ May 7th 2007 5:48PM]

Where do you get that Canon wants out? NanoP is just trying to extort more money.

Look back many years. NanoP has some patents for SED displays that need massive additional research before it could go to market. No one is too excited about it. Canon steps up to the plate buys license to that tech for the "bargain" of 5 million, Spends years and millions more on research/dev to make it viable. Just when it looks Viable, NanoP sics the lawyers to find some way to get rid of the agreement. Now that the tech is real, nanoP wants to renegotiate, figuring since Canon is in for millions now, and actually seems close to getting real product, now is the time to extort them for more money.

Canon should definitely get it's money back if NanoP is pulling the licences. It pure slime move by NanoP and nothing more.

[Nathan @ May 7th 2007 8:13PM]

As much as I want SEDs to come out I want NanoP to get screwed. They deserve to get nothing when no one picks up SED tech.

[Anonymous @ May 8th 2007 12:51AM]

By the time SED finally hits the market, it will be too late. OLED is too delicious and that tech for LCD's with variable backlight brightness (on the fly) is sexier than SED ever thought about being. Sorry Canon

[erich.strasser @ May 9th 2007 12:43AM]

I don´t think SED-TV is to late. I don´t see OLED-TV and Laser-TV before 2009. So SED-TV have more time to can competite against OLED,Laser. A Info site about all new tv technologies is http://www.oled-display.info